Sonic the Hedgehog: Adventures Explained
by RalphNaderPantyRaider
Summary: This is my take on SEGA's established plot to the Dreamcast games. It focuses on the main Genesis games and Sonic Adventures 1 and 2. There are added elements from Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) as well as some original takes on game elements. Thank you for taking the time to read this.


Sonic the Hedgehog: Adventures Explained is my take on what SEGA's story to the Dreamcast Sonic games. This is my idea so take with it what you want, I just wanted to make an entertaining read. Rated M.

The planet is Mobius, the year 3264 MOBI. Evolution has brought about a new dominance to the animal kingdom. For eons before, humans walked as the dominant species. They were too ignorant to realize the adaptations happening right in front of them. Eventually, all mammals were more intelligent than humans. While they grew and adapted, the humans downgraded, and soon were no smarter than today's average cow.

The planet Earth was bestowed new dominance and a new name. The year 2923 AD became 01 MOBI, and so, the future of Earth (Mobius) lied in the hands (paws) of these newly adapted species. Not only did intelligence improve, but so did their biology. Opposable thumbs came first, bringing about most Mobian technology of early MOBI. Soon, these species had no appendage different than today's human. Peace swept the planet. No one wanted anything they didn't need anymore, and there was only one religion. These once instinct driven beasts became no less diplomatic than the modern man with minds far superior than those before.

All this change was too much for several species. Select rabbits and birds only were allowed some greatness of other animals. These stayed in the shadows of greater animals, who kept raising the bar each and every generation. As for humans they became no more than household pets and domesticated farm animals, alongside those cows with equal intelligence. Only one human family was ever able to beat the evolution: The Robotniks.

With generations going as far back as 12000 BC (archeological imprints suggesting), the Robotniks were able to beat out the degeneration with perpetual mind exercise and never ending education. Each and every Robotnik wrote a memoir of their "discoveries" (more or less excuses not to stop learning), which detailed their greatest inventions and ideas. The Robotnik closest to the year 2013 AD was Ricardo Robotnik, a Spanish Politician who collaborated with his uncle Wesley Robotnik, from America. Wesley never met his father, who was sent to assist in national security on the newly created Space Colony Ark. His name was Gerald Robotnik. Gerald was a world renowned technological genius, sporting a master's degree in Physics and Electronic technologies. Gerald was called upon by the United States to help in a war effort advertised as anti-Communist BS. Gerald was actually sent to the ark to help in undisclosed genetic engineering to create a super soldier capable of withstanding ammunition based weaponry. What came from this was "Project: Shadow; Codename: Ultimate Life Form". Miraculously, the limited testing done to the project, it proved to be able to withstand all firearms of the time. Not even a bazooka could keep the creation down. The project details were never released to the public of course. The creation was taken to Earth on New Year's 1959. Cryogenically frozen in the back of an inconspicuous MOVING VAN, Project: Shadow was taken to an abandoned warehouse for the finishing touches to the biology when all hell broke loose, with Russians attempting to capture this technology for themselves. The captain of the moving crew had to send Project: Shadow back to the ark with a one way escape pod. The entire team has been deemed MIA. As for Shadow the government believed Project: Shadow was way too risky, seeing as how it was nearly captured by Russians after barely 2 hours being on earth. Dwight Eisenhower contacted government agency GUN to handle the task. An elite force of nearly 200 GUN soldiers stormed the Space Colony ARK. Gerald Robotnik was able to create one final log detailing his final thoughts and Project: Shadow. He would never be able to finish this request. Project: Shadow tried to help Gerald as much as possible while under the control of his master. All Gerald was ever able to tell Shadow was to protect his granddaughter Maria. This, Shadow did as much as possible, but as things happen, he wasn't able to. The only survivor of the ARK, with the help of Maria, Shadow escaped destruction by GUN. Not even those soldiers made it out. But more on that later.

Fast-foreword to 3220 MOBI, the incredibly distant grandson of Gerald lived under the shame of the current generations of humans. Always mistaken as one of the lesser humans, Mr. Ivo Robotnik could never be taken seriously as a human in a world like Mobius. Ivo was ridiculed mostly for his weight, being larger than even the healthiest farm human. He was given names such as "Fatso" or "Bubba" or "HOLY FUCK THAT THING'S NASTY" but one of these names always stuck with Ivo: Eggman. He despised the name, believing these animals thought of him only as a chicken farmer (chickens were left behind in evolution, too). The ridicule and tenacity of those animals drove the poor doctor into pure insanity. He used his superior mental power to formulate evil plans to destroy all of these animals who talked of him in such ways. He at first tried torture. Screams of agony couldn't even give the doctor satisfaction. He forced these animals to watch as he skinned, cooked, and ate their entire family (which is practically what happens in today's farms). Nothing he did to these poor creatures satiated his desire to annihilate the entire adapted population, so he began to broaden his horizons, and came up with a dastardly plan. He began to manufacture robots of war, powered by the animals themselves. He would send these forces into the animals' civilizations, and watched as they destroyed each other with barely any interference from Eggman himself. Towns and eventually were decimated by Eggman's army. News of the evils of the robotic maniac spread far and wide across all of Mobius. For 30 years the doctor tore across the planet. Cities began to develop escape plans if there was ever the possibility of an offensive by the doctor. One of the cities that made one of these plans is known as Kephkotch, a small village nestled in the rolling green hills of Emerald Valley.

Merely 20 years old in the year 3261 MOBI, Kephkotch was one of those places where everyone knows everyone, and have to live off one another. One of the founders of this village is a hedgehog, and has brought SOME peace and prosperity to the village; others believe he was a complete fool, unfit to lead a city. In any case he was able to maintain a relationship to have a child, that child we know as Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was the most adapted hedgehog that Mobius had ever seen, actually learning to walk after TWO days of life. His desire to keep moving spread rumors across the village he was destined to become Emerald Valley's #1 mailperson. That was, of course, until Dr. Robotnik came to town.

3264 MOBI: He was spotted 10 miles out by the top army officials in the Emerald Valley, who were stationed there from a rumor obviously held by a credible source. Escape plans were initiated, and the villagers all rushed to escape the grasp of the mad doctor. All except for that blue hedgehog's father and some other city officials. Sonic had never left his parents' side in those first 3 years of life, and when told to leave with the others, there was no way in hell he would be going. Those parents were forced to command Sonic's exit. Here, Sonic was told words he would learn to live by:

"Sonic, the man coming to our town isn't looking to make friends. He will not hesitate to kill you if it means he wins. So no matter who you meet, how long this lasts, or however many times you encounter him: Never stop running."

Sonic was forced outside the village to the rolling green hills of Emerald Valley, and an entire future ahead of him. The time for innocent fun was over. At only age 3, Sonic had taken his first step into the real world.

It took no time at all to run from the destruction that engulfed Kephkotch immediately as Sonic escaped. As small as Sonic was, the terrible Dr. Robotnik spotted the escaping animal and took off after the fleeing creature, a move that would shape the future of the world. The little fucker was fast though, it took Robotnik 3 zones just to catch up to Sonic. But Robotnik knew what he was doing. He brought out a huge wrecking ball first thing first hoping so scare the animal into submission. Baffling Eggman to this very day, Sonic fought back. And so, the most brilliant mind of 3264 MOBI was defeated by a 3 year old hedgehog. Robotnik fled the scene as fast as possible, and Sonic continued on to this large containment pod. Upon opening it, out came some unlucky animals evolution had missed. Those animals ran free, the very first to be saved by Sonic. He didn't even know what to think of the entire thing. What the hell do you expect, a 3 year old adapted hedgehog to be able to understand his calling? All Sonic knows is that something told him what he did was good, and that he should continue onward.

Sonic fought through countless trials by Robonik and his army, which would be shown up by this young "freedom fighter." Robotnik's final plan was to corner Sonic at a venue he created: Scrap Brain. The location being his base of operations stationed conveniently where he conquered his first city, and not even that could keep Sonic down. The destruction of his greatest creation left the doctor in shambles. He couldn't believe how a 3 year old ANIMAL could have stopped his brilliant mind. Looking out at his destroyed home, a glint stuck out to his eye. Upon investigation, he discovered it was an emerald with a strange feeling to it. Touch alone gave the doctor a premonition of great power emanating from the emerald. He knew what his calling was: look for more of these objects.

All that Robotnik could conquer on this island he had been raised on had been conquered. And with Sonic's raising popularity, animals across this island began to doubt the true powers of this doctor. Robotnik knew further attempts of control would be met with much too much resistance, so he gave up and left in search of new places to destroy. Sonic, who must have heard his parents wrong, believed he needed to follow the mad doctor and put a stop to any plan he would formulate. This brought to two to Westside Island, stationed about 50 miles from Sonic's Christmas Island. Sonic was unknown in Westside Island, and the same went for Robotnik.

Robonik knew he was being followed, and now on top of his insanity, Robotnik was now paranoid. Something in his brain snapped and so did all the morality he had left. The very first place he came upon was a farmstead neat Westside Island's coastline. Within this farmstead was Miles Tails Prower, and the parents he would barely ever know. The mad doctor and a few robots paid a visit to the farmstead, and by a visit, I mean bounded Tails and his parents to chairs and brutally tortured them for nearly 5 hours. The agony wasn't enough for the mad doctor, as he violently raped Tails's mother in front of them, both parents soon after stabbed and left to die from bleeding. After the sickening deaths of the two, Eggman focused on Tails, who was only 2 years old and was just another animal to Eggman, bearing first hand witness to the sheer viciousness of the mad doctor. Robotnik set the home aflame and left Tails to die from within. Robotnik and his army packed up just in time for Sonic to drop by and check out the devastation. Sonic, now aged 7 sees Tails barely living, just escaping the burning house. Of course, Sonic is over there in a hurry to help out and realizes the evils that Robotnik committed, but what's he to do? He's 7 years old, how can he care for someone that's 2? Sonic does the best he can to revive the fallen animal. Sonic sees Tails's second tail, and is immediately taken aback. Once Tails is conscious again, Sonic tries to get any information out of the kid. All he can get is "Big fat man came and broke stuff" and "Born with two tails." He could even use these two tails to FLY! For the next year he spends all of his time with Tails and they are instantly connected. He teaches Tails all sorts of fighting techniques, and even Tails manages to teach Sonic a thing or two. It felt like they were truly brothers, who were never able to experience what that was like due to the very same man's actions, and where the hell else would Tails go? As Eggman's brutal path of destruction spreads across the entirety of Westside Island, Tails agrees to tag along, assisting Sonic in his honorable battle against the evils of Eggman in 3270 MOBI.

The first time the team can even catch up with the mad doctor is in a valley so similar to Sonic's home he barely believes what he sees. Rushing through the Emerald Hills, Sonic feels at home. The nostalgia trip is interrupted when details of Eggman's plan unfolds. The serenity of the Emerald Valley is in question as Eggman has been stealing the Chaos emeralds, which supernatural powers had held the balance of peace in the Emerald Hills for years. For a few months, before Eggman really started to terrorize people, there had been total peace among all those on Westside Island, something that really could come from the full powers of the Chaos Emeralds that kept the island in check for centuries. As Eggman stole the emeralds the balance of peace was eliminated and soon Eggman didn't even need to be there for the animals to be killed. Sonic couldn't figure it out for shit, but Tails picked it up immediately and understood the Emeralds kept the peace, and without them, the animals weren't in check. It seemed ridiculous, but any reason to stop Eggman was enough for Sonic, and soon enough, Sonic was collecting the emeralds for the Hills.

Sonic finally caught up with the mad doctor in the ravaged metropolis of a once great city. Defeat of Robotnik only posed more questions, because Eggman was able to escape in his flight pod. Tails was finally ready to reveal to Sonic a long-time project: his plane. The very first Tornado went after the fleeing doctor. After many an attempt to stop the mad doctor the duo reached Eggman's winged fortress. AA defense got to Tails, taking down the first Tornado as quickly as it had arrived. Alone again, Sonic fought his way through the fortress.

After the extravaganza that was the fortress, Sonic met up with the doctor again, who fled to a huge ass rocket that Sonic barely managed to jump onto before taking off. From there, they flew to the Death Egg, a magnificent creation by the mad doctor that was to become his global base of operations after his global takeover. Sonic dropped off in a different area than Eggman, and soon enough he was staring into the metallic eyes of the incomplete Metal Sonic, who hadn't even had its first coat of paint before Sonic took it down. From here, Sonic chased after the mad doctor to his final creation: A huge fighting mech with his eggy shape. Sonic fought a hard battle and managed to escape the bursting Death Egg into the dark void of space.

Tails, who at this point is looking for any sign of Sonic's survival, sees the explosion, and flies up in a "repaired" Tornado. Sonic fell into the atmosphere, hopelessly falling without any chance of survival. He thought if there could be anything to help it would be those strange emeralds. Sonic had all 7, and felt an amazing presence with the emeralds, and soon enough, everything was transforming about him. The emeralds had changed Sonic into a super sayain capable of invincibility and flight. Just as Tails caught up with him, Sonic was already shooting across the sky, knowing true victory.

As much as Sonic didn't want to, they went back to the Emerald Hills, and replaced the 7 chaos emeralds to where they rightfully belonged. Peace swept across the land and happiness ensued. As the doors closed to the chambers of the chaos emeralds, no war ever broke out on Westside Island, even though truthfully, Sonic swiped the emeralds back for himself after the doors closed. No one knew, no one got hurt. And with that, Sonic and Tails left for new adventures across the ever changing planet of Mobius.

With their new Chaos Emeralds, Sonic was able to understand the delicate balance of power in the emeralds and himself. Sonic was now able to go what he called "Super Sonic" only at the constant expense of these Rings he keeps finding. For a whole year Sonic and Tails are back on the track of Eggman, who has somehow survived the explosion of the Death Egg. They're both skeptical, but when more Eggman robots pop up around the countryside of random islands, some truly believe the mad doctor is back. Sonic and Tails after this year have only one solid lead: the fallen Angel Island. The most either of them knew were folk tales of the amazing island from the sky, said to hold the true equilibrium of the Chaos, Super, and even a Master Emerald, which holds the true power of all these other emeralds.

Using this only lead, Sonic and Tails went off to find this fallen island. It isn't long before the obvious island is spotted, and Tails prepares the newest Tornado #2. As they approach Sonic goes Super to scout ahead. Who they meet now is Knuckles the Echidna, whose punch alone is able to knock the Chaos emeralds from Sonic, breaking the equilibrium. Knuckles snatches up the emeralds and runs off. Sonic and Tails are now trapped in another adventure courtesy of this new red felon.

But, who exactly is Knuckles? To learn more about this Echidna, we need to delve back into the now distant past of 3260. Born into a family of treasure hunters, Knuckles was hell bent on becoming the best of these hunters. Even in a family of 20, he was able to become the best, and earned the civil right to forever be the guardian of the Master Emerald. He earned this right at age 5. It seemed pretty awesome then, but after 5 minutes, it kind of got to Knuckles as being incredibly boring. This didn't change after 5 years versus 5 minutes. And the one day that Knuckles was given relief for guard duty, Eggman reared his evil head. He decimated the remaining members of the Angel Island Echidnas, and when Knuckles returned to the colony, he didn't know what to believe. In fact, he would believe anything. This gave the mad doctor an advantage, because while he was medically insane, he was still a brilliant chap. He thought up a lie and he thought of it in a snap. The mad doctor explained how a blue hedgehog had come about to destroy those echidnas. Knuckles was the only survivor. In this case it was unfortunate that echidnas were naturally compassionate, no matter how much they tried to hide it. Knuckles believed the mad doctor, who agreed to help Knuckles protect the Master Emerald from the blue hedgehog. So Knuckles agreed to take out the blue hedgehog himself. Knuckles ran off to find Sonic, while the doctor stayed back to examine the majesty of the Master Emerald.

Not only are Sonic and Tails now inclined to stay in a new land that they've never been to, but half of Eggman's forces have already taken up shop. Sonic and Tails can barely find their way through it before a flying robot attacks them, burning down the entirety of the forest. Not much can be done for the place. Only when Sonic rolls through a wall does he find the first of the Chaos Emeralds. Eggman is alerted of the retrieval of the emerald, and goes to deal with the two himself. He takes a bomber jet to the skies and quickly catches up to Sonic and Tails who narrowly escape the attack from the mad doctor. Sonic storms through the island recollecting the 7 Chaos Emeralds. It's when Sonic tries to go Super that he is transported to the Super Emerald containment unit of the island. It turns out these emeralds are held in check by the Master Emerald. That is what caused the island to fall in the first place. Now Sonic and Tails must collect all 7 of those too.

Knuckles moves back to the Master Emerald's shrine to consult with the mad doctor about what to do next. The evil mastermind tells Knuckles to lead the two to the shrine, where he (Knuckles) must stop them once and for all. When Sonic and Tails arrive, Knuckles engages in combat. The distraction is enough to keep all attention from the mad doctor as he attaches a cable to the Master Emerald and his flight pod. Knuckles' defeat brings the attention back to Eggman. He escapes with the Master Emerald. The betrayal of Knuckles is enough to change their dispositions toward each other, and Knuckles reveals a secret entrance to the mad doctor's base, which is the fallen death egg from before. Inside is the entire stash of Super Emeralds. Now Tails can go super! The two go after the mad doctor. The creation is beyond anyone had ever seen, but it still wasn't enough for Sonic who is able to find Robotnik. He battles 3 stages of mechanical mastery that is Dr. Robotnik, but none of these creations prove productive, as each and every time, he is defeated. Eggman flees out of frustration with the Master Emerald. Sonic is fed up with Eggman's running and takes to the skies after him as Super Sonic with Tails in the Tornado 2. Super Sonic destroys Eggman's flight pod and detaches the Master Emerald. Luckily, the new Tornado has also been equipped with a grabbing mechanism, capturing the falling Master Emerald. The two return the Master Emerald and the Super Emeralds to Angel Island's shrine. With the balance at equilibrium, the island raises into the sky once again, Sonic and Tails victors, and Knuckles forever in their debt.

For 4 years past the Angel Island adventure, Sonic and Tails travel all around Mobius for sightseeing and more adventures without the big ugly head of Eggman looming everywhere they went. Sonic met his biggest fan-girl, luckily while Tails was on vacation, because there's stuff that no one ever forgets, and that's the case when fan-girls strike. While Sonic focused on having fun, Tails became more educated, and was soon the brains of the whole group. Knuckles started teaching himself martial arts as he spent his days with the Master Emerald. They were having the time of their lives. Little did they know that the mad doctor had survived the attack so many years ago, and was hiding away preparing a machine to turn back the fabric of time, and prevent any failure that the mad doctor had encountered against the blue hedgehog. The mad doctor only had one problem: the only source with enough power to produce these results could be a chaos emerald. There wasn't much he could do other than to TRY to lure Sonic into handing the emerald to him altogether. He sent a message across all Mobius, trying to find that one place Sonic could be.

Miraculously, Sonic did hear this transmission. Eggman was still alive in 3274 Mobius and he wanted Sonic to find him. For a month, Sonic skewered the most disturbing locations around the planet looking for the mad doctor, even asking Knuckles for help at one point. It wasn't until the three searched a seemingly desolate cavern did they find the mad doctor, finally finishing his creation. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles believe they have cornered Eggman, when they're jumped by Eggman's robots. One actually manages to knock an emerald away from Sonic. Eggman commands the robots to force the three to watch as he uses the power of the Chaos Emerald to engage the machine, but Sonic has none of it, and breaks free. The robots try to attack Sonic, but end up messing with the machine's parameters.

The machine initiates the time sequence and plunges all of them into a white void. They're travelling across the very fabrics of time. Where? No one knows until the sequence completes. The void gradually dims until nothing can be seen.

Sonic awakens to the sounds of a radio. Sonic struggles to his feet trying to make sense of where he is. The location is an empty alleyway. Sonic moves toward the nearest source of light. He reaches the end of the alleyway to see he is in a large city that is practically empty besides the illuminating street lights. Sonic searches for a while longer and finds a dumpster. Within it were many products he'd never seen before. One thing stood out in particular. A newspaper, with the headline "Earth Day Comes Again," the newspaper dated April, 22, 2009.

Sonic never heard of an "Earth," and what was an "April?" He could only assume the 2009 meant 2009 MOBI, because anything before MOBI was scientifically proven false. Still, the confusing image has stuck with Sonic his entire life as he tried to make any sense out of the predicament as he could. And suddenly, out of nowhere the street is bustling. People everywhere, that's right, HUMAN people, with higher mental parameters than the average cow. Moving, talking, and not even noticing the obvious change in biology that was Sonic. He ran from the people in the streets down more and more streets, each becoming busier and busier. Sonic couldn't handle the pressure, constantly watching out for the sudden influx of the HUMAN population, and hid away in another alleyway. He couldn't understand where he was. There wasn't supposed to be such a large human population in 2009 MOBI. He hadn't even seen a single animal since he got there. Just as Sonic contemplated this, he heard the growl of a stray dog in the alleyway. The vicious, instinct driven expression on the animal was enough to convince Sonic there weren't any intelligent animals in 2009. It was also enough to tell him to get out of there.

There wouldn't be any human that Sonic could find in this time that would help him, the only things that will help him here are speed… and Tails. Where was Tails?

Tails woke up in the presence of a younger looking human child. It looked female, but it had CLOTHES on (which the very thought of it was absurd), so it was hard to tell. He just lay there, staring into the eyes of what he thought was the IQ of "cow" they were notorious of having in 3274. It wasn't until the human spoke that Tails rethought this.

"Hello" it said. How basic, maybe it's just sort of cow IQ level. Tails got the idea to respond.

"Hello" he said back. The child was clearly surprised to get the response. Tails was confused as to this. He thought that humans would be accustomed to the speech of an animal.

"You can talk?" the human said.

_No shit?_ Tails thought. "Yes I can, you're surprised?" was all he could come up with.

"Well, around here, not very many animals can talk." The human said.

Where on Mobius was Tails? A place where not very many animals talk? What kind of place didn't have the occasional passerby?

"Where are we" Tails asked next.

"San Francisco. It's a big city!" the human said.

Where the hell was San Francisco? It couldn't have been an island; he had travelled all over Mobius with Sonic and hadn't once seen a place called San Francisco. Wait, Sonic! Where the hell was _he?_

"Hey, I need to get going now!" Tails could only say.

"Why? You just got here!" the human said. Why was this thing trying to drag out the conversation (although it was pretty impressive how it COULD have the conversation in the first place)?

"I need to go find my fr…" Tails thought for a moment. "I need to go find my BROTHER."

"That sounds like a lot of fun! Can I come with!?" the child shouted. _You've got to be kidding me, _Tails thought, _of all the humans to get stuck with, it's the one that can talk and doesn't stop._

"No, there are dangerous things that I do, and I can't let low intelligence life forms hold me back."

"Yeah," was what the human said next, "There are lots of bad men out there."

"Lots?" Tails said next. "I can only think of one. The Chaos Emeralds keep everyone else in check."

"Cares Emeralds? What are those?" the human said

"Are you kidding? The Emeralds keep equilibrium over all Mobius and give Sonic and I the power of the sun."

"Who is Sonic?"

"Look, I SERIOUSLY need to get going now."

"Ok, but be careful. Those bad men have a lot of tricks!"

_I get the idea kid._ Tails thought, and he got up to leave the room. Upon opening the door, he was greeted with an incredibly wrinkled and incredibly hideous human. The human let out a screech and ran from Tails.

"Wait, Nana!" the child shouted after the abomination. "He's really nice!"

_What in the hell have I gotten into?_ Tails thought.

After a while, the abomination and the child returned to Tails.

"This is Nana…" the child paused. "Nana, I don't even know his_ name_!"

"I still am not sure of this!" the abomination said.

"I'm Miles, but you SHOULD call me Tails (if you know what's good for you)"

"Oh, Holy Spirit it DOES speak!" the abomination squealed.

"Nana, Tails is really nice! You don't need to be scared." The child said.

_Don't be too sure, _Tails thought, _I'm REALLY starting to get sick of all this._

"Ok, I absolutely must go now, so if you could just move…" Tails's exit was blocked by the bubbling mass of pure ick that was this abomination.

"I can't just let you terrorize this town! You cannot go anywhere!" the abomination spoke.

"Please, Nana! Trust me!" the child said "I promise he won't hurt anyone! Just let him go!"

_Right, NOW you want me to leave. _

The abomination stood for a few agonizing seconds. "Fine." It said. "If you truly believe what has come about that thing is good then you must be right."

The abomination stepped aside, and Tails was finally free to go. The child smiled and the abomination turned.

"That thing is just gross." It said. It was as much as Tails could do not to smack the bitch. He held back and looked out at "San Francisco." Out the home he walked, and he took his first true step onto Earth in the year 2009.

Knuckles didn't have such an easy entry into the harsh world of 2009 Earth. He woke up behind a building that reeked of beer, sex, and illness. He thought it could only be a college university. It was not; rather it was jam-packed with full grown disgusting humans. It wasn't any normal human hangout, for these humans wore clothing, not something very customary of a cow level IQ organism. When Knuckles tried to get the attention of some of these animals, they took no consideration of the echidna's authority.

"H-hey Bruce! Check this out it's o-one of those giant rats people been complaining 'bout!" One bumbled out.

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?" Knuckles shouted at the dirty bastard.

"Whoa, Jim! Be careful there… I... I think you m-made it angry!" another came tumbling into view.

"Jee-SUS! This fucker's ugly! What the h-hell could it be?" the first one said.

"I'm giving you to the count of 10 to tell me what is going on!" Knuckles shouted at them.

"It might be one of 'em… I don't know…" The second one said.

"You think we could m-make some money off it? Like those scien-whatzawhozits that look at s-stuff like that?"

"ONE!"

"No… I mean like… it could be a red tiger!"

"This thing c-could be worth millions!"

"TWO!"

"You ever seen a red t-tiger… what the hell's your name again?"

"Huh? Oh, man, this stuff is AMAZING!"

"THREE!"

The two humans walked (the term used very loosely) away from Knuckles and out of sight. Knuckles, still with no answers turns to his treasure hunting instincts and leaves the little alleyway he was in. He travels down many empty roads until he finds an electronics store. The hunter's instinct tells him to stop, and Knuckles finds himself staring into many televisions all conveniently lined up. On those televisions was a date: 4 – 23 – 2009 / 1:14.38 and counting. Knuckles could make no sense of the seemingly random numbers (he'd never looked at a calendar before) and only hoped treasure hunter's instincts could lead him back to his friends… and away from the humans!

Those humans… stupid cows.

Knuckles proceeded to search for his friends once again.

At this point all Sonic is looking for is someone to talk to. There's just so much going on, a whole lot of changes at once. He finds his way into a building and scales it from the inside. He then manages to find his way onto the roof. What he sees is incredible: Hundreds upon hundreds of concrete structures, so much more different than the steel constructions of 3274. Not only is the shock of the structures forceful to Sonic, but there were so freaking many! The Mobians of 3274 understood smaller communities were more productive than larger ones. Cities had all but disappeared in 3274, and this was more than Sonic had ever seen at once. Then the arising problems from the sheer size of the city flooded into the mind of the blue hedgehog. _This place is so huge. There's no chance I'll be able to find Tails and Knuckles, _Sonic thought as he went back down the building.

The city was still dark, and still bustling. Where would he go next? Sonic stopped to look around. No longer travelling light speed, Sonic re-entered natural time and space, and the world around him began to move once again. This meant the humans could see him again. It wasn't easy for them to take in. First there was a shriek, and then another. Two vehicles collided with each other, one's robbery siren engaged. Everyone on the street had stopped moving and was staring at Sonic. No one moved or made a sound.

"Uhh… hello?" Sonic awkwardly spoke.

The humans were not ready for this. There were more shrieks as the humans scattered, running every which way yelling like a herd of frightened cows. Sonic never had been a man of stereotypes, but all that talk of humans having the IQ of "cow" was beginning to make sense. The humans were still screaming as the sound of police sirens filled the air. Soon enough, Sonic was surrounded by a wagon circle of police cars. Sonic had never seen police cars and had no idea what to think.

"Put your hands where we can see them!" a voice emitted. Sonic had no idea where it had come from or who could have such a loud voice.

"What the hell is that thing?" one officer asked another.

"It doesn't matter what it is, we have orders to fire if the suspect doesn't comply," the second officer responded.

Sonic was engulfed by a new light from the sky. He thought that day had finally come, but instead it was a flying machine. At first he thought it was Tails, but it was an incredibly weird looking plane, with the rotor on top, and it wasn't even moving forward.

"Final warning," came the voice again. "Put your hands in the air, or we will be forced to shoot."

Sonic spun around trying to find the source of this voice. He moved in a direction and was immediately bombarded with firepower provided by the police officers. He had to jump up and down and all around to avoid the bullets, and got to an open stretch of road.

"After him, now!" was what Sonic heard next, and as he tore down the road, red and blue lights kept close. It was as much as Sonic wanted to go light speed to escape, it was just incredibly exhausting. He didn't want to waste all his energy on these cows. He tried evasive action, but these cows had to have been trained for years. Sonic barreled through alleyways and underground parking garages. The red and blue cows stayed right behind him. There was no way any human could have been this well trained. They were smarter than any human he'd ever seen, and there were 12 of them! This couldn't be any place in MOBI time. Maybe there was a land before Mobius? Sonic didn't have enough time to contemplate the possibilities, as one cow had gotten close enough to him to begin shooting. Why did these cows want him dead? More and more red and blue lights approached Sonic as he turned down into a tunnel. The noise from the human's vehicles was unbearable in the tight walls of the tunnel. There were at least 5 cows shooting him at this point. Sonic had no choice; he had to go light speed.

Sonic entered his second state, preparing his mind for the switch to light speed. The sounds began to slow; the world was stopping around him. The humans' cars slowed to a crawl.

"What's happening to it?" was all an officer was able to spill out before time stopped around it.

Everything around Sonic had stopped moving, except for him. Now Sonic was travelling at light speed, and perpetually moving forward. Sonic zipped through the still city, and eventually out of it. He was nearly out of breath when he reached a coastline. Time began to move again around him, and Sonic came back into reality. He was so exhausted, his heart was racing and his lungs felt as if they were about to burst. He caught his bearings and looked around. Sonic was finally alone again after what felt like forever. The moon was still high in the sky at the beach, and Sonic sat down to listen to the waves, and TRY to make sense out of what was happening. Sonic stared with what he knew: he wasn't home anymore. Now he went on to the unknowns: where was he, WHEN was he, where were Tails and Knuckles. Sonic could only use what the newspaper had told him: 2009. It couldn't have been 2009 MOBI; there was no way intelligent humans could be wiped from the face of the planet in only 1500 years and still have beautiful landscapes in his time. Sonic first thought he had entered a new dimension, but that couldn't be true. The mad doctor might have been crazy, but he got his machines to work the way he wanted them to one way or another. Wait, Dr. Robotnik… if he and most likely his friends were in this time, the doctor MUST be there too! There wasn't any time to sit around and think, Sonic HAD to find the doctor before he destroys this place too. But just as Sonic stood up, he fell back down again. He couldn't even find his own friends, how could he find Eggman? It was then that Sonic looked around the beach and saw a little suburban area. He decided to take a look around there to scavenge for food. _Man,_ he thought, _One day I'm the savior of Mobius, and the next I'm digging through trash for food._

The first house he came to had a trashcan full of empty containers.

"Rice-a-Roni?" Sonic said. "Jif Peanut Butter? What's with all the labeling? Food wasn't just packaged and delivered in this time?"

The next home's trashcan was completely empty, the one after that filled with the shattered remains of some appliance, and the one after that smelled like shit, and Sonic didn't even want to look. He was about to move onto the next home when he saw its door open. He quickly took cover next to the putrid stench of the trashcan. He observed as a hideous, shriveled up human stood facing away from the outside. After a few minutes (which felt like hours next to that trashcan) the human stepped away from view. Sonic saw an opening to run away, but he stayed still when another figure went out the door. Sonic kept put as the door closed behind it and it walked off. Watching from afar, Sonic could barely make out the silhouette of the thing in the darkness. It moved past the home Sonic was hiding in, and Sonic came out from behind the trashcan. He could have run off from here and probably wouldn't be heard by the figure, but curiosity got the best of him. He followed the figure as it approached the exit to the suburb. The silhouette approached a lone streetlight and stopped underneath it. Sonic couldn't believe his eyes: it was Tails.

Tails stood underneath the streetlight, trying to read the map he'd taken from the home. It was a confusing read, but he came to the conclusion that it was not a map of "San Francisco," and he threw it to the ground in anger.

"Well, well," a voice said from behind Tails. This really surprised Tails, the talk about bad men with the human may have subliminally scarred him for life. In any case he tried to look as menacing as possible as he spun around.

"Who's there?" he said. Stupid. He'd look like easy pickings with that response.

"I'm here for 20 minutes and nearly get killed multiple times, and you're already living it up in the suburbs?" it spoke now.

Now Tails was confused. The sentence made absolutely no sense in context with rape = murder preceding. Or maybe that was the idea: confuse the victim into submission. The owner of the voice stepped into the light.

"Tails, I swear to Phil, if you think you can do this to me, you've got another thing coming!" the owner of the voice was Sonic. That saved the trouble of finding him.

"Sonic! Thank goodness it's only you. For a second there I was really scared," was what Tails said next.

"You should still be scared! I have half a mind to rip one of those tails right off!" Sonic raged. Well, so much for a nice conversation.

"Sonic calm down, we're back together again. We better off this way, and it helps not to be at one another's necks at all times. Why are you angry?"

"I saw you coming out of that house," Sonic said, "If you've just taken up shop there without finding me first I think I have the right to be angry."

"Me taking up shop there?" Tails asked, "I woke up there to a young human."

"_Young… human?_" Sonic laughed, "You sick pervert! I don't think I can be friends with a pedophilic zoophile."

"Are you kidding me?" Tails shouted, "First of all, she looked MY AGE, and second, sex is the very first thing you can think of when I say 'I woke up next to _blank_?"

"Wow," Sonic said next, "Calm down! You say I'm overreacting."

"Just listen," Tails resumed, "We talked for a while and… I can't believe this happened she actually seemed like she wasn't a complete cow! Like there was actually something in that pathetic excuse of a brain they say humans have. Anyway, it talked about bad men, and that's what had me scared of you."

"You were scared because of what a HUMAN had said?" Sonic asked.

"I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was such an intriguing altercation. It said something that reminded me of you, and I tried to leave, but then this… huge… disgusting abomination of Mobius blocked the doorway. It ran off, and the kid ran after it… I was stuck there for, like, 10 minutes before it would let me leave. Dumb bitch said I looked GROSS!"

Sonic stood there for a second thinking and then said: "You need to be more careful. Next time it might actually be a rapist." He walked off.

Tails covered his ass in fear. _Sonic can be such a douche sometimes_, he thought, and followed Sonic out of the suburb.

"So… do you know where Knuckles is?" Tails asked Sonic when he caught back up.

"Do you fucking expect me to do everything?" Sonic shouted, "No, I barely even managed to find you."

"I hope he hasn't caused too much of a ruckus…" Tails said.

There was a yelp that came from around the corner. Sonic and Tails followed the sound of the shout.

Knuckles brought his fist down on the glass one last time, this time it finally shattered. He sifted through the mounds of candy.

"Chocolate…chocolate…more chocolate!" He kicked over a small bin. "I HATE CHOCOLATE!" Knuckles screamed.

Sonic looked at the hole in the window of the grocery store.

"Yep," he said, "Knuckles has definitely been here."

Sonic and Tails stepped through the hole and looked around for Knuckles in the darkness. They heard him scream again, and easily found him.

"Are you kidding me Knuckles? Aren't you supposed to be calm and collective to be allowed to guard the Master Emerald?" Sonic said, examining a candy bar.

"Yeah…" Knuckles mumbled, "It's just something about this city… it makes me so ANGRY!"

"Well, just don't break anything else in here, those red and blue cows will probably be here in a flash with that window."

Tails was inquisitive. "Red and blue cows?"

"The humans," Sonic said, "They drove cars that had red and blue flashing lights on them."

"Oh!" Tails said, "Those were police officers. Before peace spread across Mobius, there were law enforcement officers that kept the "peace" on Mobius. After all criminal activity ceased on Mobius, there was no longer any reason to keep the police around. All of that is a distant memory now, and only works of literature portray what law enforcement was like."

"So the cops stopped criminals?" Sonic asked, "I wasn't even doing anything wrong."

"Well, we make mistakes sometimes. Simple biology!"

"Right, I should totally just forgive them for mercilessly attacking me with GUNS."

"Well you're… strange… looking. They probably just didn't know what to do."

"Gee, shooting at someone just because they look strange. That is a PERFECTLY reasonable motive."

"Well, they are complete morons," Knuckles chimed in, "With IQ levels that low, it must be natural to be that moronic."

"Knuckles, it couldn't have been that." Sonic said, "These guys weren't complete morons. I tried everything I could to get away and they stayed right behind me. I had to go light speed just to evade them."

"Well, it's been proven that 1 in 2642 domesticated humans will be born more intelligent than others by a noticeable factor." Tails said.

"Yeah, but there were at least 10 of them, and ALL of them could do what I did in their huge, bulky vehicles." Sonic said, "I don't think we're dealing with any normal humans. I think we're dealing with something much larger than that."

"If what you say is true, then there is no way were dealing with something produced by Mobian biology." Tails said, "I think we're in a completely different time period. Nothing MOBI, I'm saying WAY before that."

"I was thinking the same thing," Sonic said, "There was a newspaper that read 'April 22, 2009.' That couldn't be 2009 MOBI, but it's been scientifically proven that anything before MOBI isn't possible."

"I think this world is very possible. We seem to be existing pretty well in it," Tails said, "Do you think that just because everyone said everything before MOBI was impossible, they weren't just saying that to avoid investigating it?"

Just then, police sirens began to fill the air again.

"There's those cows," Sonic said, "We should just fight them now and get it over with."

"Are you serious?" Tails asked, "Law enforcements had hundreds of recruits at hand at all times. Taking out a few won't help for anything."

Tires screeched as the police cars blocked the trio's only exit. Soon the police forces were able to set up shop outside the store with weapons drawn.

"This is the Commander of GUN." A voice emanated from the police force, "You have 2 minutes to surrender peacefully, or we will use lethal force."

"What do we do, Sonic?" Tails panicked.

"I've gotten past these fools before I can do it again." Sonic said

"You have one minute remaining!" The Commander spoke again.

"How about you take that megaphone and shove it up your ass!" Sonic yelled from atop the building.

The Commander stared at Sonic wide-eyed. "No… it can't be!" he said.

Sonic jumped down from the building in front of Tails and Knuckles. Noise came from the police force

"There are more of them?" One of the officers shouted.

"Don't just stand there," the Commander shouted, "Take them down, NOW!"

The GUN soldiers took aim, and rained lead upon the trio. Sonic leaped out of the way of the bullets bringing Tails and Knuckles with him. The three ran from the GUN forces. The red and blue cows gave chase to the trio. The three led the GUN forces around the tightest of corners and down alleyways. No matter how hard they tried, the forces stayed right behind them.

"How do we get out of this one?" Tails shouted.

"Just keep running!" Sonic shouted back.

Sonic led the trio onto a packed expressway. The three ducked and weaved in and out of the traffic trying to throw the GUN forces off balance, but no matter where they went, the GUN forces could weave in and out of traffic just as good as the trio could. As they travelled down the expressway, the traffic got tighter and tighter to the point where they could barely get in between the cars without getting hit. The GUN forces still managed to keep right up with them. Eventually, the traffic around them had completely stopped. Each lane was filled, and only a straight line ahead of them could be travelled. It was then Sonic saw the cause of the traffic jam. At the very front of the traffic jam, two trucks had collided, blocking the entire expressway, leaving one of the trucks in a slanted shape: a nearly perfect ramp. Sonic knew exactly what to do. He grabbed onto Tails and Knuckles. He prepared his mind for light speed. The gun forces could only see them getting blurrier.

"What's happening to them?" the Commander demanded to know.

Sonic engaged light speed and the GUN forces slowed to a crawl. Everything stopped around the three, and Sonic pushed forward at the speed of light onto the ramp truck. In an instant they were airborne. The completely still city from 200ft in the air was truly a sight to behold, and after the awe inspiring scene, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles landed on a hill just on the outskirts of the city.

"That was amazing Sonic!" Tails shouted.

"I'm impressed!" Knuckles even said, 'How did you do it?"

"I really don't know!" Sonic said, gasping for air, "It's just something that came to me one day… and it's proved to be useful."

At the same time, the Commander was livid.

"I told you NOT to lose sight of them," he shouted at his driver.

"I'm sorry sir, but you saw it! They just disappeared right in front of us!"

"If you EVER screw up like this again, I will personally make sure you couldn't get a job as a custodian at a landfill!"

The Commander stormed out of the vehicle onto the crowded expressway.

"Lieutenant Sparks!" the Commander hollered, and a pencil thin geek ran to the Commander. "I want the entire area scanned with a fine tipped comb. Put all other cases on hold, and deny any until these things are stopped."

"Sir," the geek said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"I did not sign you on to question my authority!" the Commander barked, "Do as I say or kiss your career goodbye!"

"Yes, sir!" the geek said, "I just don't believe doing that will help…"

"I pulled you out of the dump ass ghetto you called a home on my terms, and I can throw you right back with even less in one call. I'm giving you one last chance, do NOT mess this up. Now GO!" the Commander took out an image of a black hedgehog. "If this is truly you, Shadow… I'm not letting you get away. Not after what you did to GUN… to Maria."

The sun was finally rising over the hilly outskirts of San Francisco. The three silently watched as it rose, the sky morphing color after color. When the sight was over, the trio got right back to business.

"So, we can all agree that we are in MOBI time anymore?" Sonic asked.

Both Tails and Knuckles nodded.

"And we can also agree these humans aren't complete cows?"

Both Tails and Knuckles nodded again.

"We're eons away from home, and yet we still stay strong. I've got to say it's an honor to be alongside you guys."

"Are you going to stop with the sappy stuff so we can get to the action?" Knuckles shouted.

"Really, I can't have ONE emotional moment?" Sonic asked.

"We seriously need to get back on track," Tails said. "It's great that we have come to terms with the event, now we need to get to business. If we're here, Dr. Eggman must be too. That guy is brilliant. In the amount of time it's taken us to get our bearings, he could have an entire army at the snap of a finger."

"Are you about done sucking the guy's dick?" Knuckles asked.

"Shut up, Knuckles. The point is, if we really have travelled back in time, and Eggman messes something in the space time continuum leading up to our future, our existence could just collapse… causing a whole lot of bad things to happen."

"So basically we just have to stop him like always, right?" Sonic asked.

"Almost," Tails said, "We need to make sure he doesn't ruin history leading up to us. What we need to do is stop Eggman before he breaks anything."

"That will be impossible. He probably already has," Knuckles said.

"Well, we need to prevent as much of that as possible." Tails said.

"Okay then, Braniac, what do we do now?" Knuckles asked.

"We can't do much until we find the doctor, so let's start there."

The team looked high and low for the mad doctor, avoiding all human interaction. The city was even busier during the day than night, and it was difficult for them to slip around undetected. It didn't help that the GUN Commander had stepped up patrol 10 fold. It was clear that the Commander held something against Sonic, but none of the three knew what. It wasn't until nighttime engulfed San Francisco that any of the trio could get even a lead to the doctor. Sonic was observing from a rooftop.

"This place is too big, there's no way we'll find Robotnik this way." He said.

No sooner had he spoken then a force of 5 police cars stormed down the street in front of him.

"No reason not to follow them," Sonic said, and ran after the police cars.

The officers had crowded around the entrance to a parking lot, making it difficult for Sonic to see what all the commotion was. All he could hear was the firing of their weapons.

"It's not working! Fall back!" Sonic could hear one shout. He jumped past the officers guarding the entrance to the parking lot to see the creature they had cornered. It was a rolling mass of presumably water. It looked like an alien from another planet.

"Okay, whatever you are, what are you doing here?" Sonic asked it. He got no response from the creature. It just stared into Sonic… deeply.

"Isn't that the beast the commander wanted dead?" one of the officers shouted.

"I think so! Take them both down!" another shouted.

Sonic turned to see the soldiers taking aim at him, only for those soldiers to be knocked unconscious by the water creature he had just met. He turned back to the creature to see it staring at him yet again.

"So, does this mean you're on my side?" Sonic asked. The creature continued staring. It then lunged at Sonic, knocking him over. The water creature then escaped through a sewer grate. "Alright, that answers that…"

Sonic thought it was over from there, and ran out of the parking lot. He did not see the large being on the top of a nearby building. The being was none other than Dr. Robotnik.

"So Sonic really is here too? Good, without him taking over the world just wouldn't be fun," he said looking down at his Chaos Emerald. "I just have to make sure and find the other emeralds before that hedgehog, and my master plan will all come together."

Sonic returned to the trio's camp on the hill.

"So, did you find anything?" Tails asked.

"Actually I did." Sonic said, and he relayed the events that just transpired between him and the water creature.

"Maybe your Super form could have stopped it," Knuckles suggested.

"Hey, that could work!" Sonic said, and started doing a forced scream. Tails and Knuckles looked at each other in confusion.

"What are you doing?" Tails asked.

"What?" Sonic said, "I can't go Super!"

Sonic looked all over his body.

"I lost all the Chaos Emeralds!" he shouted.

"Makes sense," Tails said, "If we were all separated from the time machine, the emeralds very well could have too."

"What do we do now!?" Sonic panicked.

"We just find them before Eggman does. If we don't, who knows what he could do with them?"

"Looks like we've got a mission!" Knuckles shouted, "Alright! I was getting worried we wouldn't be doing anything anymore!"

"Then maybe this time you can actually get WORK done," Sonic told him, "Why don't YOU go after the Chaos Emeralds? That'll prove you really have 'treasure hunting' skills."

"Fine, I'll find each and every one of them. I might even find my OWN Super form!"

"Yeah, right. Have fun with that." Sonic hesitated, "Okay, so what can we do, Tails?"

"We need to find the doctor's base of operations," Tails said, "There's a higher chance we can find a flaw in his plan if we see it first hand BEFORE it's unleashed."

"Alright, works for me. Now what can I do?" Sonic asked.

"What? You think that I'm automatically inclined to take up that mission because I came up with it?" Tails asked.

"No, I think you can do it because you can FLY," Sonic explained. "That ought to assist in the reconnaissance involved in something like that."

Tails thought for a moment. "Sorry I snapped back like that. This whole ordeal has been incredibly life changing in such a short period of time."

"It's fine. We can't focus on petty arguments. Let's just find the doctor and put a stop to his plans. Then we can settle _our_ problems."

Sonic rushed off in one direction and Knuckled grabbed a magnifying glass out of practically nowhere and began investigating the ground.

"What a bunch of characters," Tails said, and he flew off.

The GUN headquarters in 2009 was a lot more elaborate than in 1959. The group was supposed to be disbanded in 1961 after the attack on the ARK got into the hands of the media. On the outside, they are merely common officers of law, but they are still much more than that. Underneath the concrete jungle of San Francisco is a system of tunnels, most of which leading absolutely nowhere. The exact directions are known only to the three thousand remaining members of the team. A grueling 20 mile walk from the entrance to the base is what keeps the group under the radar at all times. One mistaken turn down the wrong tunnel can end with no way to judge your previous path, and ultimately no escape. The walls of most tunnels are 4 ft thick, meaning practically nothing going down the tunnels will make it in or out through the walls. And even if by some otherworldly luck you find your way to the GUN HQ, you'll be GUNned down on sight. One of the most important figures perpetually in the GUN HQ is a withered 91-year-old lifeless shell of a man. This man was the GUN commander for 34 years until he passed the title onto their current Commander. This man commanded the attack on the Space colony Ark in 1959, and his assassination was staged in late 1960. When the public GUN crumbled, the old man brought the forces all together in the intricate system under SF. Now he is nothing more than a center of knowledge and advising for the other soldiers.

"What is the situation with the mutants?" was the very first thing that the soldiers heard from the old man that day.

"We're trying to track them down, but we have nothing as of now." The current Commander told him.

"Try harder." The old man said next.

Two wounded soldiers entered the room of the Elder. They were covered in blood and muck, their shoes covered in the grime of the tunnels.

"Status report, Wasowski?" the Commander turned to his soldiers.

"Sir," the soldier attempted to salute, but could barely even hold his own weight up.

"At ease," the Commander told him, "What happened out there?"

"We… we were searching for the target," the other soldier explained.

"Did you find and apprehend it?" The Commander asked next.

"No… we did find it… but we were distracted by an alien-like… water beast,"

"Water beast?" the Elder laughed, "That's preposterous!"

"Soldiers are sworn never to lie, so help his soul. What you're telling us is the truth, correct?" the Commander asked.

"Yes… I know what I saw," Wasowski stated. "It was too powerful; the bullets literally bounced right off it."

"Is everyone in your party safe?" the Elder asked.

"No," the other soldier could barely hold his head up to the Commander. "We're the only ones who made it back."

"Get cleaned up men, you're both disgusting," the Commander… commanded.

"But, sir! What about the water beast?"

"We'll deal with that after we stop the mutants," the Elder said.

The soldiers were drug out of the room, and the Commander and Elder were the only ones remaining in the room.

"What is it with so many of my once loyal men suddenly questioning my commands?" the Commander thought aloud.

"With all the freedoms these kids are given these days, it's no wonder they don't know everything about our pasts, Commander," the Elder told him, "In my days, we would have been de-commissioned from that single comment."

"Never mind that now, what are we to do about the 3 mutants?" the Commander asked.

"First, we find them!" the Elder laughed. "We can't do much until that part is out of the way."

"Well it's obvious we need new tactics to apprehend them. Giving chase hasn't worked for shit."

"Watch your mouth, sir," the Elder laughed again, "Go talk with the soldiers that saw the mutant. Find out everything you can, all the information you get can and WILL be used against them."

"May GUN be prosperous Elder," the Commander said.

"Oh, just get out of here and leave all the official crap," the Elder said.

The Commander left the room and immediately found his assistant.

"Has the 24 hour surveillance of the city picked up anything?" he asked.

"Nothing now," the assistant said.

"Where the hell did you put the cameras, up your ass? Two of my soldiers just told me they saw it in the city," the Commander yelled.

"We're trying as hard as possible to optimize the systems, they have picked up ALL activity in the entire city," the assistant tried to counter.

"You have 5 hours to find something, or your entire family will be put back onto the draft listing," the Commander hollered for some coffee and went to his quarters.

Back on the surface, the sun was high in the sky shining down onto the red mass that was Knuckles.

"Sonic thinks he knows me, that I can't treasure hunt! Ha," he told himself, "he won't be laughing when I find all 7 Chaos Emeralds on my own!"

The day drug on for Knuckles, and after an hour of looking, he was sick of it all.

"Alright, so nothing out here," he said, "There might be some in the city,"

Knuckles snuck through the alleyways avoiding any human contact. He didn't care about what Sonic said, the humans were still brain dead cows. He came upon what could only be described as a crumbling structure in the middle of a street with brand new buildings around it. Knuckles saw a homeless man next to the building, and as much as he didn't want to he asked the man about the building.

"Oh, that there's the Henderfinkel building, been abandoned for years," he stated, "The place once belonged to the duo of Johnny Henderson and Howard Finkel. Too bad they never used the building."

Cows. All of them. Knuckles went into the building and was immediately taken aback by an awfully sickening smell. He investigated further inward and saw a huge pile of rotting raw meat.

"Dumbass cow," Knuckles said to himself, "This was an old meat producing factory."

Knuckles got out of the building finding nothing. That was when he saw the Dr. Robotnik entering a hotel across the road.

"HEY!" Knuckles shouted at him, "GET BACK HERE YOU BEAST!"

Knuckles ran after the mad doctor and entered the hotel, only to find the doctor had vanished.

"Have you seen a giant egg pass through here?" Knuckles asked the receptionist.

"Why yes! He just entered the pool area! It won't do much without any water in there. I don't like him, he doesn't pay the fees," the receptionist droned on and Knuckles thought just to go with the pool lead. Knuckles found an elevator, but the dastardly cows that built the vertical scaling machine put the button too high for Knuckles to reach. He had to use the stairs instead. Knuckles used "treasure hunting skills" leading him to the pool area after 15 minutes searching.

"Alright, Eggman!" he shouted to the doctor, "Come quietly and I might refrain from beating that moustache right off your face!"

The mad doctor laughed, "Oh Knuckles, you've always been so independent, having the qualities of such a great leader. Why do you take orders from Sonic when you could be the one MAKING the orders?"

"Don't try to trick me, Robotnik! Fool me once, shame on you!" Knuckles told him.

"Yeah, but fool you at least twenty times, then what?"

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"Oh, nothing. Just that you're so naïve that even Sonic can tell you what to do without much effort! You're just a useless lackey."

"I'll make you EAT THOSE WORDS!"

"Why don't YOU have a taste of my new pet, Knuckles?"

A mass of water began to seep out of the drainage system in the empty pool. It all came together in front of the mad doctor in the shape of a giant alien-like creature.

"What IS that?" Knuckles shouted.

"Why, this is Chaos! This is the centermost piece in my grand plan of WORLD DOMINATION… whatever world this is."

"If you think you'll get away with any of this, you've got another thing coming!"

"Oh, I do believe I AM going to take over this world. Why not just eliminate you from the equation while were in the same room! Chaos, take out the trash."

The monster garbled an incoherent mixture of grunts and groans before setting sights on Knuckles.

"Have a nice time, Knucklehead!" the mad doctor gleamed with joy as he escaped from the pool area.

"Well, I have no idea what you're supposed to be, but that won't stop me from kicking your aquatic ass!" Knuckles shouted to the water creature.

The monster screamed… maybe that's what it was, before transforming into a ball-like shape, and bounced across the room.

"Hey, I'm supposed to be beating you, not playing with you!"

The monster lunged still in ball form toward Knuckles, who had to dive to escape. Knuckles winded up a left hook, and took a jab at the beast, but his fist merely sunk into the watery beast. Knuckles tried to free his hand, but the moment the fist had punctured "Chaos," the membrane hardened, and he could do nothing about the trapped fist.

"What are you?" Knuckles shouted to the beast.

The monster merely threw itself into Knuckles, and while this freed his hand, it didn't really leave him anywhere to go from there. Out of desperation, Knuckles threw another punch, and this one must have landed in an important spot, because the water creature burst apart, leaving exposed two Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles's spirit immediately lifted at the sight of the emeralds.

"I TOLD Sonic I knew what I was doing!" he shouted with glee, and raced to the emeralds, but "Chaos" came back together at the last second, engulfing the emeralds once again in his watery membrane. Knuckles was ready to fight the monster again, but this time the creature hesitated, and then escaped down the drainage system in which he came.

"Oh sure, NOW you don't want to fight, now that I know how to beat you!" Knuckles did a ridiculous victory dance and rushed out of the hotel.

Tails didn't have as good of luck searching for the mad doctor as Knuckles did. While Knuckles HAD found the doctor, Tails didn't even pick up a trail. He stopped near city limits for a rest when he found a newspaper stand.

Perhaps_ this could help? _Tails thought.

The front page had the date April 22, 2009 emblazoned upon it. The reverse side held a list of "America's Most Wanted Criminals in California."

"Hmm, _bad men_," Tails restated. That statement had been haunting him since first finding Sonic in this new world. There were a lot of bad men in the San Francisco area judging from how long this "Most Wanted" list drug out. The first was a rapist/murder suspect, the second a rapist/bank robber, the third a duo of rapist/drug traffickers, the fourth another rapist/murderer… why did every one of these huge criminals have 'rape' in their description box? Does every criminal on "Earth" have to be a rapist on top of every other offence? It certainly wasn't helping Tails's psyche. Look at that one! Rapist/child sex slave trafficker, what the hell kind of place is California? And the next was a rapist that killed his entire family, both his neighbors and each of their pets. What the fuck is wrong with these humans? The highly adapted species of 3274 never killed one another, do only humans do this? It was then Tails read a life changing detail about this super murderer: "He was last seen in the San Francisco area." Tails dropped the newspaper out of his hands in pure shock and stared right through his hands. He couldn't even speak a word and just began walking slowly backwards. No matter how adapted the species of 3274 were, Tails was still only 8 years old, and pretty much every child has a fear. The thought of the multi-murderer being anywhere in the city was a shocking fact. He couldn't control himself for much longer, all those suppressed fears while with Sonic, all those times he forgot to turn on that nightlight in the hall, that moment underneath the streetlight earlier that morning all came rushing up at once. Tails was about to let it out… when he backed into something. He didn't want to, in any meaning of the fucking word, turn around… but he had to. He slowly turned and found himself staring into the eyes of the very man he'd seen in the newspaper. The man cracked his neck and stared into Tails's eyes.

"What the fuck are you?" was the first thing he said. Tails nearly shit himself from the murderer's voice… actually, he _did _shit himself. "Well? I'm waiting for an explanation."

Tails could barely breathe at the sight of the… inhumane beast in front of him. "I-I-I'm… Tails…" he was shaking from his head to his feet.

The murderer looked at the two tails, "Makes sense."

Tails was about to pass out _before_ the murderer said his next sentence: "Why don't we just save the both of us the trouble of chasing you and you just step into the van."

Tails tried to shove past the man, but he grabbed one of the tails that Tails is known for and began to drag him off to the piece of machinery the murderer called his car. Tails tried everything within his power to break free from the grasp of the maniac, but found no way to loosen the grip on the ever approaching doom that was about to be his. The murderer threw Tails into the back of his "van" and they drove to a secluded shack near a ridge of a San Francisco bay Cliffside. By the time they arrived at the assailant's mound of sheet metal he called a home, the sun was already setting on what Tails believed at that point to be his final day. Tails was all but thrown into the home. Lined on the walls were bloody hacksaws and pelts of human flesh. This was no ordinary multi-murderer, this maniac was borderline insane. Then the moment began that Tails had been dreading. The maniac's pants were off, and it was all Tails could do to find a way though the puny shack that could throw off the maniac long enough to find a way out. He was on the verge of coming up with an escape plan when his tail was grabbed again, and he was drug back to the maniac. Only seconds remained of Tails's purity. There had to be a way. He grabbed a beer bottle at the _very _last second and brought it crashing onto the murderer's skull. This split second of grip ease allowed Tails's momentary escape. He managed to find his way to the door, only for it to be locked. Tails tried in vain to force it, but the door held steady. Tails heard the pumping of a shotgun next, and turned to see the now-armed assailant holding the barrel to Tails's head.

"I told you we could have made this easier, now just surrender and I MIGHT let you live,"

Yeah, that was total bullshit, but what else was Tails to do. Tails eased, and the assailant took one hand off the shotgun to grab him. This was the opening. Tails made a final ditch effort to kick the gun toward the murderer. It worked. Tails escaped the vial grip of the maniac, as the gun batted the assailant's head. Tails used every ounce of his power to kick out a window, and crawled out from there. The murderer had had it from there. He kicked open the door, and gave chase to Tails. The maniac's yanking had done a number on Tails's… tail, and there was no way he'd be able to fly away. The pant-less maniac tackled Tails next to the ridge of a San Francisco bay Cliffside. He threw a fist into the Tail's skull and he barely managed to stay conscious from it.

"You're the most difficult one I've ever gotten!" the maniac spat out, "I don't know what the fuck you are, but you're tough."

Tails gathered all the strength he could, "My name is Miles Tails Prower!" Tails yelled at the man, whose penis was inches from his ass, "I AM A FOX!" He drove a kick into the man's dangling meat sack. It sent him reeling backwards to the very edge of the ridge. "And I'm not afraid of you anymore." Tails drove his foot into the murderer one last time, and the battered, insane beast was sent off the Cliffside down to the rocky valley underneath. It was over. Tails managed to keep his purity, and kill one of California's most wanted criminals. He wouldn't be getting any compensation for it, but the fulfillment of overcoming his largest fear since entering this new world was compensation enough. All he could do was let out a small laugh. Now, how the hell was he going to get back to the encampment? He looked over to the shack and then to the sunset. There wasn't much else he could do.

As night fell, Tails couldn't sleep, #1 being the rotting prizes the assailant had collected over the years was unbearable, and #2 the fear came back full force in the middle of the night. What if the maniac survived? What if he had a whole band of… bandits, and they'd be coming for Tails? Judging from that newspaper, all of them would probably be rapists as well. He came so close to being taken up the ass that he just didn't even want to sleep. He stayed up the whole night emptying the entire shack of bones and body parts. The stench cleared up after a while, and he set up a little work area in the center of the shack. Building throughout the night, Tails was able to transform the shack into his own little workshop. The night carried on with no more interference.

"Where the hell is Tails?" Sonic yelled at Knuckles.

"I haven't seen him since this morning," Knuckles responded.

"It's the middle of the damn night, Tails hates the dark! He wouldn't just be out at a time like this."

"You expect me to be his freaking babysitter?"

"When I'm not around, yeah I do!"

"I can't be everywhere at once with cameras all over the city!"

"Well, I don't care about anything but finding my brother from here on out."

"You're overreacting, Tails is fine."

"You don't know him like I do, this isn't like Tails. Something is wrong."

"Well, why don't you go look for him? I'll stay here and wait, and when he shows up, I will have proven you wrong for the SECOND time today!"

"Fine, if you can't even help me out one time."

Sonic ran off in search of Tails, but never thought to look in the mountains that Tails was actually in. Sonic searched the entire night for Tails. Finding nothing, he went back to their encampment. But Tails had been working that night, and using the power of a Chaos Emerald he'd discovered along the Cliffside, he'd built a third Tornado. At the crack of dawn, he took to the skies in search of the encampment he'd made with Sonic and Knuckles.

"I told you he was just fine," Knuckles stated with glee at the sight of the Tornado III. Tails landed the plane expecting a glorious welcome back party, but only got this:

"Where the FUCK have you been Tails?"

"I was just out for a while…"

"You spent the entire night alone, and didn't even tell us?"

"Chill out man, I'm fine! You're acting like a mother!"

"What happened to you? Your tail is all messed up and you've got a black eye…"

"Nothing…"

Sonic stared right into Tails.

"What. Happened. To you?"

"I was taken to a shack on the Bay Cliffside and nearly raped by a multi-murderer."

"Are you FUCKING kidding me? How the hell do you nearly get RAPED?"

"The guy what a complete psycho, he would've fucked a cactus."

"Where is he now?"

"At the bottom of the cliff."

"Well, that solves that problem, I still can't believe you got nearly RAPED and MURDERED by one of those cows."

"Can we just drop the subject, I… just can't stand the idea."

"You just went through hell and don't even want to talk about it?" Knuckles asked.

"Shut up Knuckles," both Sonic and Tails said together.

Barely getting anywhere with the little family reunion, the three returned to their daily affairs while a big brooding figure watched them from afar.

"Enjoy the peace while you can, this will be the last day you will see it," the mad doctor said, "All I need is the Chaos Emerald from that plane, and I can harness the full power of 'Chaos.'" Robotnik held a Chaos Emerald in his hand. "The plan is coming together perfectly."

Tails decided to finish the story of how he stopped the maniac.

"I used the Chaos Emerald for its power source and flew back here." Tails told them.

"I'm still amazed it wanted to rape you," Sonic said.

"Well, they do have the IQ of cows," Tails said, "Anything a human can fuck, they will."

"Can you show us the place you've taken over? It would defiantly beat sleeping in the cold for another night."

"Yeah, let's get going,"

The trip was short in a plane when long is a beaten-to-hell rape van. The dark and imposing location was colorful and bright in the morning, with a shimmering lake and waterfall near the workshop. There even looked to be a mineshaft leading to a forest behind a rock face on the mountain as well.

"This place is beautiful," Knuckles said, "You played it up to being frightening,"

"Well, it was night and I feared for my life," Tails snapped back, "I think I had the right to be afraid."

"Right, so let's see this Chaos Emerald."

Tails got the Chaos Emerald out from the plane.

"Once I get a better engine, I shouldn't need that on the plane."

Out of nowhere, Dr. Robotnik swooped in yet again.

"Are you serious?" Tails asked.

"I am very serious, and I am very sure that emerald belongs to me!"

The mad doctor knocked the emerald from Tails hand all the way from his flight pod with a grabbing mechanism. The emerald entered the waters of the waterfall and lake. Eggman tossed his in there as well.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sonic yelled to the mad doctor.

"Merely feeding my pet, is that against your many laws too, Sonic?"

The water erupted, and resting on the surface of the water was "Chaos," now in the shape of a shark.

"That thing gets more and more powerful with each emerald it consumes," Tails observed.

"It wasn't too tough to beat with 2 emeralds, 4 doesn't sound like much of a challenge either!" Knuckles shouted, and he ran to the beast.

"Knuckles, wait!" Sonic shouted after him.

Knuckles pounced on the creature and broke it apart exposing the emeralds again.

"Maybe he does know what he's doing," Sonic said, and ran for the beast.

The attacks were ridiculously aggressive for the beast, and Sonic had to make a couple dives to escape the grasp of the beast. Eventually, the might of the monster was suppressed by the trio.

"Well, it seems you all have sharpened up your skills here," the doctor said. He looked around, "My, Tails, you've changed this place up! And that plane of yours? Bravo. How would you like to see what _I_ have been working since arriving?"

The mad doctor pressed a button on his flight pod, and soon enough, a giant airborne vessel filled the skies above them all. It was inhumanly massive, definitely something that couldn't be produced from scratch in 2 days.

"It's been great fun friends," Eggman told them, "but I have some havoc to wreak! Call me when you've got another Chaos Emerald!" and with that, the doctor was beamed up to the enormous ship.

"Eggman. He never runs out of ideas." Sonic kicked the dirt up.

"What do we do now?" Knuckles asked.

"First of all we need to stop practically handing this guy these Chaos Emeralds," Sonic told him. "Then we put a stop to the both of those creatures."

"What was that ship? It was absolutely massive!" Tails was in awe.

"We can't let it get away, let's go after it now. Tails, get that plane back in the air."

"What? I haven't even perfected the new settings without the Chaos Emerald yet!"

"Just do it! Knuckles, you stay in town in case the creature comes back."

"Fine, but I'm going to kill Egghead next time I see him."

Tails gets the plane back into the air and they go after the Egg Carrier.

The skies were murky as the two vessels travel across the troposphere.

"Tails, where are we? I can't see anything below us."

"There's no reading up here, I can't track our position."

"No matter, follow that ship!"

It was then the Egg Carrier activated its defenses.

"Okay, follow that ship, and dodge all that crap!"

The technology of 2009 is no match to Tails's advanced skills, and the missiles come nowhere near the two. It wasn't until they passed the ship that they were in danger."

"Get a little closer so I can jump on!" Sonic shouted.

The Egg Carrier charged up its main laser and fired directly at the Tornado III. It was a direct hit and it sent the Tornado III into a nose dive of imminent death. Luckily they were right above water, which shielded most of the impact. Sonic and Tails managed to bail before hitting the water's surface. The plane was torn to pieces. They safely landed in the water.

"OH PHIL, OH COLLINS! SAVE ME I CAN'T SWIM" was all Tails could hear.

"Sonic…"

"HELP ME PLEASE, OH MY…"

"Sonic! You're in knee deep water."

"Oh," Sonic looked around him, "so I am."

They both watched as the Egg Carrier soared out of view.

"There goes our most sought after nemesis… probably never to return," Tails said sadly.

"He's coming back," Sonic told him.

"How do you know?"

"The last 3 Chaos Emeralds are still here." Sonic said as he got up and walked onto the beach they landed on. He looked over to see a half-naked corpse by the rock face.

"Oh good Collins, look at that poor sucker," Sonic said.

The Commander of GUN stood at attention in the mayor's office.

"The perimeter around the city has been set. The creatures have no escape. We will make sure your city is safe."

"You had better know what you are doing, sir. These creatures are not to leave this city alive. They have brought only danger and despair and must be eliminated before word gets out." The Mayor told him.

"You can rest assured that they will not live to see tomorrow."

"You had better, because I'm keeping your team under the radar, and it's taking a lot of tax money."

"Mr. Mayor, leaving me in charge of these affairs was the best decision you could have made. The city will be safe by the end of the day."

"Good, now go and wait for them. I've got a feeling their arrival is near."

Knuckles observed the Tornado III's fall from afar, knowing they would be fine. He then set his sights on the mineshaft that would lead him to the unknown forest behind the waterfall. He sat in a lone mine cart, not knowing what it would lead him to. All at once the door to the mine cart slam shut, and the cart raced through the double doors keeping Knuckles from the forest. The mineshaft wasn't too hellish, the pathway was somewhat straight, and nothing jumped out to Knuckles in the ancient architecture of the mineshaft. He barreled through another set of double doors into an extensive, beautiful forest. All he could see were treetops on a ledge above the forest. In the distance, though, was a huge triangular structure, and Knuckles was more than interested to it. In fact, he was sort of drawn to the structure. There was a ladder to the forest from the ridge, which was strange. It looked brand new, but no one had been through that shaft for years, Knuckles knew it. He reached the bottom to a dense forest that he couldn't even see out of. He just thanked himself that he didn't wait until night to go through the forest. Knuckles went in circles for what felt like an hour. He eventually found an opening with a home-like structure carved out of a tree. Knuckles didn't know what to expect in the home, but he searched it anyway. The place was desolate besides a lone stove in one corner. Knuckles was about to leave when a large purple biology filled the doorway. It spoke.

"Heyyy," is what it sounded like, "Who are youuu?"

Knuckles was actually scared of the beast. It wasn't a normal human in that doorway. It was much larger and imposing than those cows. It actually looked a lot like the cats of 3274. Could this be an early stage of adaption for the species of his time?

"Greetings, brethren," Knuckles said to it, "I am Knuckles of the Echidna species. I've come in search of the evil Dr. Robotnik, and have entered your home because…" Knuckles thought for a moment, "it looked suspicious."

The cat said nothing for a time, then responded, "Okay, friend. You're gooddd."

Well, that went better than expected! Knuckles began to leave when the cat stopped him again.

"Wait, friend! Please help me find Frooogggiieeeeyyyyy," it said.

"What? I can't do that, I am sorry. I must current my finish mission," Knuckles nearly got his point across. When he tried to leave again, the cat spoke again.

"But he swallowed a new shiny object that I found! He might have trouble digesting it!"

Knuckles thought for a moment, "What was this shiny object like?"

"Well, it was blue and sparkly, and when Froggy swallowed it, he grew a tail!"

It wasn't much, but it was the only lead Knuckles had to the remaining Chaos Emeralds. "Okay, I'll help you find that frog." Knuckles said.

"Yippie!" the cat shouted, "Let's go find Frooogggiieeeeyyyyy!"

The cat tore down the pathway of the forest. Knuckles hesitantly followed it, kind of fearing for his life. They eventually got to a clearing, and in the center was the triangular structure Knuckles had seen before. The stone used to build it looked prehistoric compared to things around the city, was it possible that the history of this planet went back even further than 2009?

"Froggy went in there!" the cat said pointing to the pyramid, "You've got to get him out!"

"Okay, wait here," Knuckles said, "I'll go in and try to find your frog."

Knuckles climbed the stairs leading to the top of the pyramid. The stairs stopped in a boxy section of the tip of the structure. He groped along the outside of this section, and must have tapped the right panel, because the doors widened, beckoning Knuckles inside.

"Alright then," he said as he entered.

The walls were darker than the first night, and Knuckles couldn't see a thing. He came upon conveniently lit torches along a wall and continued through. Eventually he reached a light, what he thought was the exit. It turned out to be an even larger center room flooded to the brim. After some observation Knuckles spotted a Chaos Emerald across the water. Now how was he going to get there? Suddenly the walls began to shake. Layers began to fall from the top of the compartment. Knuckles next saw a large stone water snake slithering along the water's surface.

"What in the HELL is going on?" Knuckles shouted.

Knuckles approached the water, and as the snake made a pass, Knuckles leaped to it, and latched onto the stony surface. The velocity was high, and Knuckles could barely hold onto the spiraling snake. He got his bearings long enough to jump off the snake onto another platform. This one had the Chaos Emerald on it. Knuckles took the Emerald with pride. Now all that was left was to find the frog. Knuckles went further into the pyramid. He came to another large open area that dropped down into a wide hallway. There was almost no light to the hallway, and Knuckles only premonition was to go forward. There was another ground shaking crash, and Knuckles looked back to see a huge wheel, rolling toward him like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Knuckles tried as hard as he could to run from the wheel, but there was no way he'd be able to escape it. Then out of nowhere he feels pressure in his wrist, and an obvious increase in speed. He looked over in the near darkness to see Sonic there helping him along. They picked up enough speed to just beat put the rolling wheel, and they tumbled into another large compartment, with a shrine that looked as if it was dedicated to a god.

"How the hell did you find me here?" was what Knuckles asked Sonic first.

"The door to a giant pyramid just opens, and I'm not curious? Plus the huge cat-thing out there told me you went in here looking for a 'froageh.'"

"So that's what this thing is called, huh?" He looks to the shrine, "Hey, that thing kind of looks like…" he thought for a moment.

"It looks like that creature we've been battling," Sonic finished the thought.

"Yeah, but this place has got to be old! Has this water creature been around that long?"

"I don't know, but something tells me we should just leave, before something else tries to crush us."

"I told that cat I wasn't leaving until I found that frog. You can go right ahead and leave, but I'm not leaving until I find…" he looks to a corner in the chamber and spots the frog, "FROGGY!"

The frog hopped out a dark hallway and the two gave chase, and before they knew it they were back in the forest. The frog bounced all the way from the pyramid to the ledge, and had disappeared by the time the three were able to get there.

"Oh, no," the cat said, "Froggy is gone again."

"I will find your frog, citizen!" Knuckles shouted, "Just you wait, in due time, your frog will be back in all his… frogginess!"

Sonic and Knuckles left the forest and the cat stayed behind.

"But I can't wait anymore… I'm going to find him myself!"

The cat ran back into the forest and eventually found his friend again hopping into a huge metal structure, and the primitive mind of the cat didn't stop him from following it right into the structure. As soon as the cat was in there, the structure powered up. It was the Egg Carrier, and it was taking to the skies once again.

Back at the waterfall, Sonic and Knuckles found Tails working on another plane.

"Is that ready yet?" Knuckles asked.

"Not quite, just a little more optimization is going to be needed for a better flight!" Tails said without even looking back.

"Well this is going to need to be the final product, because look over there!" Sonic pointed to the Egg Carrier in flight. "We've got to go now we can't let him get any more of a head start than he has now."

"Well, you can't just put your project out on the market when it hasn't even been completed yet!"

"That hasn't stopped anyone before, let's get going now!"

"Alright, but it's on your hands if this fails."

Tails powered up the plane and Knuckles took the seat.

"Where the hell am I going to sit?" Sonic shouted.

"I'm not moving from this spot," Knuckles told him.

"Fine, I'll just STAND out here on the WING."

The Tornado IV took to the skies after the giant Egg Carrier.

"Can you try dodging the laser beams this time?" Sonic asked.

"Shut up Sonic!" Tails shouted back.

The three powered through the skies after the Egg Carrier like before, dodging every bullet on their way to the front. That was when business picked up again.

"Okay, so we're just going to get blown out of the skies again?" Sonic shouted.

"Oh, you just wait!" Tails yelled back, "Battle mode, activate!"

The plane began to morph into a full-fledged fighter jet. When the transformation completed, Tails looked pulled the plane into a 180.

"Are we seriously traveling backwards?" Knuckles shouted.

"That's not even the best part!" Tails shouted back.

He then engaged the missiles on the plane. The laser on the Egg Carrier fired up as well. Both fired at the same time. The advanced controls of the Tornado IV allowed evasion of the laser, but the missiles from the plane impacted on the Egg Carrier's laser, rupturing the appendage.

"Alright, I think it's safe to land now!" Tails hesitated, "OH SHIT!"

"What now? We were just winning weren't we?" Sonic panicked.

"I told you to let me finish! I didn't put a landing gear into this damned plane!"

Next was a mixture of profanity and screaming as the Tornado IV crashed into the Egg Carrier.

"Are you guys alright?" Sonic asked as they got out of the wrecked plane.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Knuckles said, "And I'm going to crack open the Eggman myself."

"Not so fast!" came a booming voice from an unseen loudspeaker. "You've all proven to be very persistent in your efforts to stop me, but your valiant cause will come to an end today. If you can find me in my central control room, I'll pull the final plug on your little operation!"

The Egg Carrier now began morphing into a completely different upper structure than before. Now there was a straight path to the bowels of the Egg Carrier.

"Wow, that was quite the transformation!" Tails said in awe.

"No shit?" Sonic told him and he raced to the doorway to the Egg Carrier's interior.

"Oh no you don't my spiny friend!" the doctor observed, and he sent a barrage of missiles toward the hedgehog, who was able to completely dodge every one of.

"You'll have to do better than a few missiles if you want to stop me!" Sonic shouted as he entered the Egg Carrier with Tails and Knuckles.

Inside of the Egg Carrier was an amazing display of craftsmanship, and three separate doorways.

"We should each take one of these doorways and find our own ways to the doctor," Sonic told them. Without hesitation, Knuckles took one of them.

"Are you sure about this? We've never been here and who knows where these doors go?" Tails told Sonic.

"What's that? Weren't you JUST complaining about me being too much of a mother?" Sonic asked as he ran through another door.

Tails looked at the door he was left with. The label read "Personification of Fears."

"Dammit." Tails said as he entered the door.

Knuckles opened yet another door and found himself on the deck of the Egg Carrier again. Sunset was upon the team. He would've turned back at that point if it hadn't been for the fact he saw that frog again.

"Hey!" He yelled all the way across to it, "How the hell did you get here?"

The frog paid no attention to Knuckles and continued along the deck. Knuckles raced after it and up a raised section of the Egg Carrier. Up there, Knuckles was greeted first by being knocked over, and then having his Chaos Emerald taken from him. Atop this section was the mad Dr. Robotnik, and with him "Chaos." Eggman held the frog helplessly in his rotten hands.

"You let that frog go!" Knuckles shouted to him.

As if drawn by the words, the big purple cat bumbled up to the little rendezvous.

"Hey, what are you doing with my Frooogggiieeeeyyyyy?" the cat shouted.

"Why I am merely giving MY pet his dinner!" the mad doctor said to the cat as he tossed the frog and the Chaos Emerald into the watery beast. The monstrosity morphed again, into a ghastly frog-like creature.

"Frooogggiieeeeyyyyy! Noooooooo!" the cat shouted dramatically.

"It's alright I think your frog is still alive in there!"

Next Sonic made his way up the platform.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked.

"No, you're just in time for an epic beat down!"

"Chaos! End these fools!" were the words that began the battle.

Sonic raced around the creature, but when he came into contact with the beast he would only get stuck in its membrane. Knuckles tried to get to the soft spot he knew, but it had gotten too deep for him to safely reach.

"There's no way to get to it! That beast is nearly perfect." Knuckles said.

The cat was having none of it. "Don't worry Froggy! I'll save you!" The cat tossed out a fishing lure into the monstrosity. The frog almost instantly latched onto the lure, and began to break out of the membrane.

"What?" the mad doctor shouted, "How can this be?"

The frog broke out of the watery encasement, and "Chaos" shattered.

"You'll never get away with this, you hear!?" the mad doctor yelled to the three, and he ran off to his control room again.

"I'm putting a stop to this once and for all," Sonic told Knuckles. "Once Tails gets back, you three get off this ship. I'm going after the doctor."

"Are you mad? He'll tear you apart all by yourself!"

"If that's what it will take to stop this madness, then so be it." Sonic said as he ran off.

It wasn't much later that Tails exited the Egg Carrier's interior.

"Eggman's a freak." Tails told himself. He quickly caught up with Knuckles and they exchanged stories.

"Alright, so how are we all supposed to get off this thing safely?" Tails asked.

"I've got no idea," Knuckles said as the deck of the Egg Carrier began to quake.

Sonic was hot in pursuit of the doctor when they reached a new corridor that dropped into a room with floating platforms.

"Where are you, Eggman? Let's finish this!" Sonic yelled for the doctor.

The doctor and his flying robot appeared. "So nice of you to join us Sonic! We were hoping you'd gotten lost along the way!"

"I was right behind you the entire time!"

"Whatever, the point is you fell right into ANOTHER of my traps! This one I know will prove fatal!"

The robot flew in disorienting patterns around the room shooting at Sonic at every turn. The robot had to calm down and level itself after some time. Eggman was left vulnerable just long enough to attack.

"Do you really think you can beat me?" the mad doctor yelled to Sonic.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't!" Sonic yelled back as he cannon-balled into the Eggman again. This shot sent the mad doctor into a crash course, demolishing a part of the platform. The robot continued focusing its firepower on Sonic and violently tore through the large room. One final blow to the robot sent it into another aimless pattern. The machine then nosedived right into the platform Sonic was standing on, sending both of them to the bottom of the chamber, the robot exploding on impact. The Egg Carrier continued its combustion, and soon the entire ship was at an end.

"Where are those rumblings coming from?" Tails asked Knuckles.

"I think the entire thing is falling!"

"Froggy, what's this?" the cat looked at the Tornado IV. Apparently it was still functional, as it powered up as soon as he entered it, and the plane careened off the edge of the ship down to the forest below.

"Jump for it!" Knuckles shouted as the entire ship was engulfed in a fiery explosion. The two barely made it off. With some quick thinking, Tails grabbed Knuckles and began to fly safely down to the street of San Francisco. Once they land, they watch as the Egg Carrier drops past the horizon.

"I hope Sonic is alright…" Tails panicked.

"Oh, come on, this is Sonic we're talking about! I'm sure he's fine."

Dr. Robotnik was. He spiraled down to the street in his flight pod.

"My ship destroyed… my plan in shambles… I can't let it end this way, not with how far I've gotten." Eggman got out a new control pad, and set forth the launch of what can only be described as a giant fucking rocket.

"All systems… FULL POWER!" the mad doctor shouted in glory as the giant pinnacle of death shot across the sky to the center of the city… doing nothing.

"Are you fucking serious?" the mad doctor threw down the control, "How can THAT part of the plan fail too?"

Tails and Knuckles had watched as the missile was shot.

"That was too close," Tails said. "We need to get over there and make sure nothing sets off that missile!"

"I don't care anymore! If nothing can work in my favor, I'll just take myself down with the rest of these brain dead cows!" the mad doctor reignited the flight pod, and set off for the missile.

"You were saying?" Knuckles asked.

"Oh, fantastic," Tails said, "There's no way we'll be able to keep up with the guy!"

It was then the planet's guardian angel made his entrance. Sonic fell straight from the sky and landed perfectly in front of the two.

"Are we just going to sit around as our lives hang in the balance?" he asked them.

"No way! Let's get going!" Tails shouted as the three gave chase to the doctor. They weren't even able to get around the first block when they were face to face with another adversary. The Commander had blocked off the street and stood between them and doom.

"Where do you think you're going?" the Commander spat.

Sonic told him, "We're trying to save YOUR ass! If you don't mind, we'll be on our way now," the Commander pointed his gun to the hedgehog.

"You don't understand, you've caused more paranoia in this city in the last 3 days than anyone else ever has. We're going to kill all three of you, and leave it all at that."

"Oh well, in that case…" Sonic took Tails and Knuckles and dove into the building they were closest to, and he began to scale it.

"This is the Commander of GUN calling all forces. The targets have entered a building and are presumably climbing to the top. Get all forces to the rooftops, and shoot to kill. I've had enough of playing around."

The night was strong, but they could easily make out where the missile had landed from the illumination from the buildings. The trio raced across the rooftops without the mad doctor anywhere in sight. They had no idea where he was. Then the GUN forces began to turn up on nearly every rooftop. These men were clearly well-trained, and each was a task to get past. The Commander himself followed closely to the team via helicopter, and occasionally took shots with a sniper rifle to the trio. The night was lit by the red and blue lights all across the rooftops, nearly every member of GUN in pursuit of the three in the lead.

"Why are all these 'law bringers' coming after US and not Eggman?" Sonic yelled to no one in particular.

The building with the rocket was quickly approaching, but so were the forces behind the trio. There wouldn't be enough time for them to reach the rocket before GUN would reach them. Sonic's only choice was to go light speed, but he was already exhausted from everything that had transpired before. The three hopped across more buildings, with GUN closer than they had ever been before. The Commander was about to take a fatal shot when Sonic's image became blurry. The forces all around the three all slowed down, but Sonic definitely did not. Sonic reached light speed, and ripped across the final rooftops all the way to the rocket. When the three arrived, there was no sign of Robotnik, but there was no time to search for him. Sonic was on his back, barely able to breathe from the light speed.

"Tails, you have to find a way to deactivate that missile, permanently," Knuckles told him.

"But… I know nothing of explosives! I can't just tear into the thing," Tails responded.

"You have to! It's everyone in this city's one chance of survival!" Knuckles yelled back, spotting the doctor.

Tails removed a panel from the missile to see an extensive system of wires, any of which could have been the one to deactivate the missile. He searched left and right for a pattern in the wires and couldn't find anything that could help out.

"You need to do something NOW!" Knuckles yelled.

Tails squeezed his eyes shut and cut one of the wires. Nothing happened. Tails opened an eye to see that a wire had been cut. He didn't know if it helped out at all or what. He couldn't wait to see either, as the mad doctor shoved him aside.

"This is it! Goodbye, 'San Francisco'!" The mad doctor pushed an ignition switch and nothing happened. He flipped it more times in confusion. Tails had cut the correct wire, that missile was worthless. The three were ecstatic and started cheering victory. The doctor kicked the missile out of anger as the trio was victorious. The moment was broken by the pumping of guns behind them. All four of them turned to see hundreds of silver barrels glaring into the souls of the adapted species of the future. The Commander stepped into view.

"It's a shame you've all come so far only for me to stop you right when you've thought you've won," the Commander told them.

"Listen, I don't know why you're attacking us when this fat man behind me is the BAD GUY here!" Sonic shouted at him.

"That obese bloke is not what this is all about. This is me and you."

"Then why are you trying to kill my friends?"

"All of you are the same, you say you want the best intentions on the outside, but then you cause the massacre of hundreds of citizens of our country!"

"I seriously have no fucking clue what you're talking about!"

"You know DAMN well what I'm talking about Shadow!"

"Shadow? I'm not Shadow! Who the hell is Shadow?"

"Don't play dumb with me. You're the government controlled project to create the ultimate super soldier for war. You've obviously created more life forms and plan to take over the world"

"I'm not 'Shadow'! My name is Sonic the Hedgehog! I come from a time where animals are superior to the brain dead humans, which you are clearly one of!"

The Commander hesitated, "I know what you are. You are a clone of the Shadow project, given another personality."

"Oh, for fuck's holy sake, man, I'm not Shadow dammit!"

"On my count of three, fire upon these mistakes."

Sonic stared with pure hatred into the eyes of the Commander.

"One!"

Tails was shitting himself again. Knuckles glared at the Commander as well.

"Two!"

The many possibilities of Sonic and his friends in this new world were falling apart at the seams, and only one pathway remained.

"Three!"

Hundreds of soldiers unloaded all of the ammunition they had brought with them at the spot where Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles stood. The reign of firepower went on for what felt like forever, kicking up a cloud of dirt and debris. Once the final bullet had been fired, the cloud finally began to settle. When it had completely dissipated it was revealed to the soldiers that there was nothing there. Even the fat man had made his escape in the gunfire.

"Evacuate the city," the Commander ordered without any sign of surprise in his voice, "these things are going to tear this city apart in very short time."

"What do we do about this missile?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Donate it to the damned museum if you want to, I only care about killing those things."

At the waterfall workshop Sonic was being treated by Tails's medical expertise.

"Your left lung has collapsed," Tails told him, "With all this extra pressure on them lately, I'm surprised this didn't happen much earlier."

"That's just great…" Sonic responded.

"You need to take it easy for a long while. A collapsed lung is nothing to fool around with."

"I can't just sit around while Eggman is still out there terrorizing this city."

"Why?" Knuckles asked, "These people clearly couldn't give less than two shits if you died, why should YOU help them?"

"If Eggman changes too much in this time, the entire future could collapse," Tails told him, "Whether we (or they) like it, we need to protect them from anything the doctor cooks up."

The doctor wandered around the forest lost in thought. He had to use cover from Sonic's struggle to escape. Sonic helped him? No, no one helped him, this was all Eggman!

"Who am I kidding," the doctor asked himself, "I've lost. There's no hope for the Eggman Empire…"

The doctor noticed a small mass of water cross his path.

"Chaos? Is that you?"

The mass grew into an alien-like form. The doctor looked at the final Chaos Emerald he had found in that building.

"Here you go, Chaos," the doctor gave "Chaos" the final Chaos Emerald, "Now let's get out there and rule the world!"

Chaos had become full again, and no longer needed the doctor. Chaos barreled through the doctor, knocking him over. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles had been taking a simple walk through the forest when the mass of water barreled right through them.

"Was that Chaos?" Knuckles yelled after the beast.

Sonic noticed the doctor and ran to him.

"Chaos attacked me," the doctor said, "I don't think I control him anymore."

Sonic drove his fist into Eggman's skull.

"That's for everything you've put me through!" Sonic yelled to him.

"Sonic, take it easy!" Tails yelled to him.

"I'll take it easy when this monster pays his debts!"

"We can't focus on Eggman now! That beast is headed straight for the city, and it's sure to cause damage."

"Fine," Sonic gave one last look to Eggman, "We're not done here."

It was the start to a regular day in SF. Everything seemed perfectly normal, besides the full scale evacuation that had occurred, leaving the entire city empty. The manholes in the street began rumbling, and soon enough the entire city's streets were erupting with water. The roads submerged as SF was engulfed in the flood, and becoming of the water was a Godzilla-like creature… made of the water. It was Perfect Chaos.

By the time Sonic had made it to the city, it was destroyed. Raised highways had fallen, buildings crumbled, and that undefinable demon of water was perusing around the wreckage.

"What the hell can we do now?" Sonic asked.

They watched as the creature tore through the city. A second large body now filled up the sky. It was another Egg Carrier.

"Stop this right now Chaos!" a voice erupted from the Egg Carrier.

Chaos had none of it, and lashed a tentacle at the second Egg Carrier. That fell in a fiery explosion into the flooded city. Sonic was at a loss of words and searched for anything that could help them.

The Chaos Emeralds lay in a pile, only a lot less magnificent. All color and life had drained from them.

"What's happened to these things?" Sonic asked as he saw them.

"It looks like they have been completely drained of energy, they're completely useless," Tails told him.

"Well that's just great!" Knuckles shouted, "We could barely beat this thing before, now look at the thing! We can't even go Super to try and beat it!"

"There's no reason not to try," Sonic said as he grabbed the emeralds, "If that beast isn't stopped, the future will be doomed to damnation."

The Emeralds had a faded glow to them, as if the plea to victory was responded to.

"Something's left in these things, I know it!" Sonic shouted.

The Emeralds began to glow brighter, their remaining powers sank into Sonic, and Sonic became was engulfed in a yellow flash. When the light dimmed, there stood Super Sonic.

"It looks like the water beast only absorbed the evil powers within the emeralds," Tails tried to explain, "Our cause to save this planet and the future must be noble enough for the good powers of the emeralds to come through!"

Sonic began to fly, "Man, these people need to open their hearts and realize I'm a hero!"

In a Sonic boom, the yellow emanation flew off to glory, and the only thing standing between Sonic and the future of the entire planet was this giant water creature. The beast began to defend itself from the ever approaching enigma that was Super Sonic. Easily dodged those attacks were, though, and Super Sonic flew right into the monstrosity and attacked the weak spot. The water beast let out a Godzilla screech and collapsed into the sea that had become San Francisco. Just when Sonic had thought he'd won, the beast lifted platforms up from the flood. The creature sat at the furthest end of the city from Sonic, and the only way over was through an onslaught from the water beast. Sonic started off pretty well, being able to get through the first attacks, but then the debris began to be thrown at him, and dodging buildings were a lot more difficult than a few blasts of water. Then Chaos even began to spin whirlwinds of water out to Sonic, which he was caught in and he was lifted into the sky, this proved beneficial actually, because at eye level, Sonic was easily able to locate the weak spot and drill right through Chaos's head. The beast let out yet another screech as it collapsed one last time. Light emanated from the fallen beast, and absorbed back into the Chaos Emeralds. "Chaos" was defeated.

The city was destroyed, and Chaos defeated. Sonic returned to his friends with the revived Chaos Emeralds.

"I have no idea how, but you actually did it!" Knuckles told Sonic.

"It wasn't that bad, all it took was a little kick to the head," Sonic responded.

"The guy that's trying to kill us should have seen this," Tails said, "Maybe THEN he'd realize we're the good guys here.

As if the mention drew him to the three, a helicopter descended upon them.

"What have you done to our city?" A voice came through from the helicopter.

"Really? You think we did all THIS?" Sonic shouted back.

"You're all under arrest for… annihilation of this city!"

Sonic looked to his friends, "I know what he wants, it's me. If I surrender to him, he might actually stop harassing you."

"You can't just give yourself up!" Tails told him, "They're going to murder you!"

"Eggman's been stopped, the creature destroyed, and the future safe. There's no reason to run from this fool anymore."

Sonic ordered them to leave as he waited for the helicopter to come down. The team that saved the entire planet from destruction broke apart as Sonic was captured by GUN.

"Prisoner S-0210 is T – 3 minutes from entry into Los Angeles Airfield," the pilot spoke into a radio. He was unaware that in the cargo bay of the plane, Sonic the Hedgehog was cracking the skulls of the men who guarded him.

"Some specially trained forces," he told the harshly beaten guards, "You got your asses handed to you by a 3 and a half foot hedgehog!" he searched around the plane for anything to use and spotted a snowboard. It would have to do. "Thanks but no thanks for the plane ride guys! I like running better!"

Sonic kicked open the door of the plane and jumped out on the snowboard down to a new beginning. He fell 30,000 ft. to the street without being crushed under his own velocity, so that was already a victory for him. He snowboarded down a bustling street, plowing right through everything he touched. He was able to go quite quickly down the streets on the snowboard.

"This is awesome!" Sonic shouted, but he quickly clenched at his chest, and ran into a guard rail, sending him off of the snowboard and into a park.

"Shit," Sonic gasped, "This collapsed lung is serious business…"

There was no time to sit there feeling sorry for himself. GUN's troops were already hot on pursuit of Sonic once again as he ran through the alleyways and inlets. The internals of the city eventually opened back up again and Sonic found himself back on the street. The GUN forces kept in close proximity to the blue hedgehog as he stormed through the city on foot. It wasn't until Sonic ducked under an opening in a building that he felt safe again. He was almost convinced he'd lost the cows, when he heard the roar of an engine. From behind the building Sonic had navigated under to escape the forces leaped a gargantuan semi-truck, with "GUN" emblazed on it. The massive truck kept right behind Sonic, keeping up very nicely to him. Sonic couldn't find any way to outpace the truck, and just tried to find a way to outmaneuver it, but no matter how tight the corner, the truck stayed immediately behind it. Sonic was about to give up and go light speed, when the sight of an airplane ahead caught his attention. It was Tails and Knuckles, already able to find him. Sonic tried to find a way through the city toward the plane, but soon GUN forces were road blocking streets ahead of him, making it difficult to find a way through. Eventually Sonic found a way around a roadblock, up a building, and onto the plane. As the three flew off, the GUN forces desperately tried in vain to shoot them down from the ground.

"The Commander is going to hear about this," a soldier said.

"The Commander is going to kill somebody," another soldier said.

"Well, let me start with great timing," Sonic said when they were out of GUN's range.

"It was all we could do to really preserve our friendship," Tails told him.

"Alright, enough of all this. Where are we at with the Eggman situation?"

"Since you've been gone we've gotten no evidence of the doctor's survival, but that doesn't mean anything. He probably wants us to think that."

"How about the Chaos Emeralds, are they safe?"

"They're all gone,"

"WHAT!?"

"They disappeared after the 'Chaos' fight. I don't have any idea where they could have gone."

"We need to find them NOW. The doctor would never die knowing the Emeralds were out of our possession."

"The good news is I've studied the Emeralds long enough to actually develop an Artificial Chaos Emerald," Tails found his creation, "This has most capabilities of a normal Chaos Emerald, but I really haven't got to test with a control yet…"

"That's amazing! We can just make these things now?"

"Hey guys, when are we going to get to the action?" Knuckles shouted to them.

"Let's look around this new city, perhaps there's evidence of Eggman," Tails said.

"Works for me! Let's run!" Sonic jumped out of the plane onto a rooftop and disappeared into the city.

The team searched high and low in the new city for the rest of the afternoon and found nothing. All they came up with is they were now in Los Angeles, and it was April 27, 2009. Night fell upon the city as something much more sinister was boiling underneath the concrete jungle.

The warehouse had been abandoned for over 50 years. Not a single soul had set foot in it since 1959. Dr. Robotnik forced off the ancient lock that held the secrets within from the world. He peeked around corners and at every crate. Most of the things in there could be worth thousands of dollars at their current state, but it wasn't wealth the mad doctor was searching for. He dug through mounds of crates and merchandise never shipped out. The doctor searched for at least an hour, and eventually found what he was looking for. The day earlier the doctor had been looking for anything to go with. He wasn't going to allow Sonic to win like this; he was going to conquer the planet "Earth" no matter the cost. He had searched everywhere in the cities around decimated San Francisco for something to go with when he stumbled upon an old abandoned GUN outpost. Within were mission orders for 200 soldiers to storm the "Space Colony ARK" in search for and destruction of "Project: Shadow." Anything that these "GUN" figures wanted destroyed had to be important, and he kept looking for anything related to Project: Shadow. All the information he could come up with was who it was created by, an "assault on New Year's Day", and an additional note. The first had Eggman ecstatic, Project: Shadow was created by a Gerald Robotnik. He shared last names with the guy! He had to be a grandfather of his or something. The next piece was a GUN report, stating that "Project: Shadow was attacked by Russian spies at a rendezvous on New Year's Day. The attack from the Russian government has proven Project: Shadow is too dangerous for the U.S. government to keep protected, and the project was to be terminated, effective immediately." The final note read, "Project: Shadow is genetically programmed to return to the previous location it had been if 'home' is absent." Eggman had only these items to go by when he found that warehouse that Project: Shadow was programmed to return to. Now all that hard work had come to an apex, and at last the mad doctor was staring into the cryogenically frozen eyes of Project: Shadow. Funny, it looks a lot like Sonic.

"Time to wake up, 'Shadow,'" Eggman said as Project: Shadow was unfrozen. Slowly, the ice that held the artificially created hedgehog melted away, and the creation began to stir. Suddenly it leaped with great speed from the ice that held it and hurdled into Eggman knocking him over.

"Who are you, and what is your purpose?" Shadow spoke. He had a smooth Ray Charles-like voice that really moved Eggman. Wait a second, Eggman didn't know a Ray Charles…

"I am the great Doctor Robotnik! I have unfrozen you from your cryogenic capsule and hope to take over the entire planet!" the doctor sounded as if he'd rehearsed that for a time.

"Robotnik?" the Project hesitated, "My master, you've certainly packed on a few pounds. How long has it been since the ARK was attacked?"

"ARK? The Space Colony thingy?" _So it is all connected!_ The doctor thought to himself, "Listen, friend, The Space Colony ARK were attacked by these… maleficent humans! If we work together, we can extract revenge upon them!"

Shadow thought for a moment, "Since you freed me from that icy tomb, I will grant you that wish, all I need… are Chaos Emeralds."

The doctor was taken WAY aback by this statement. "You know of the Chaos Emeralds?"

"Of course, they are what gave me life in the first place! Find the Emeralds, and then find me. Whatever you want, I'll provide."

Shadow exited the warehouse.

"Shadow! Wait!" The doctor ran after Shadow, and when he made it outside, Shadow was nowhere in sight.

The darkness of midnight made Los Angeles even more frightening for Tails. Who knows how many rapists could be there, too!? Sonic and Knuckles weren't fazed much by the night as they travelled together through the shadows of the city. It wasn't until a radio device that had been carelessly left activated caught their attention that any plot elements came into play.

"We have reporters at the scene that state they identified the felon as the mutant that was spotted all over San Francisco for the past three days before the city was flooded."

"What are they blaming me for now?"

"The mutant has stolen the newly displayed Chaos Emeralds in the Hollywood Museum, artifacts that have been missing for the past 50 years."

"How do the humans know about the Chaos Emeralds?" Tails panicked, "They were supposed to be from our time!"

"Calm down, they may have existed in this time?" Knuckles tried to help.

"The mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, has come out with the statement: "We will stop the mutants before our city is destroyed as well."

"I'm sick of being blamed for everything by these cows! If the future wasn't hanging in the balance, I'd…"

"You need to calm down and look at the facts!" Tails was about to explain, "If they mistook you, but still believe that it was you, there must be someone else here that looks enough like you to pass AS you. Which means… I can't even think of what that means!"

"It means we need to stop whatever it is causing this mess," Knuckles said. "Come on, let's go!"

"Wait," Sonic said, "I'll go alone, and you guys look for the rest of the Chaos Emeralds."

"Are you kidding me?" Tails asked, "They'll tear you apart if you go alone!"

"No, if there really is a doppelganger of me running around this place, maybe I can juxtapose him with what happened at San Francisco, clearing our names."

"Fine, if you really think it will work,"

"Anything to get these cows off our asses!" Sonic ran off.

"Where does he learn all those big words?" Tails asked.

"You talk a lot in your sleep," Knuckles told him.

Sonic raced around Los Angeles looking for any sign of the new mutant in town. It wasn't until he got to the crime scene did business pick up. The Commander of GUN was right there.

"There he is! I've got you now, Shadow!" the Commander positioned his soldiers in… position and awaited the approaching Sonic. "Fire!"

Sonic dodged the bullets once again; he avoided everything to the best of his abilities. He got behind the GUN forces and took off. It wasn't long before the GUN team was right next to Sonic, like always. The Commander spoke to Sonic from a vehicle.

"Shadow! Give the Chaos Emeralds back now!"

"How do you know about the Chaos Emeralds?" Sonic shouted back.

"Don't play dumb, Shadow! You were created from them!"

The statement was sudden, and Sonic nearly ran right into a building.

"What do you mean created!?" Sonic shouted. He didn't get an answer. There was a flash of light and the GUN forces' vehicles collided with one another. When the light dimmed atop the wreckage stood Shadow the Hedgehog, in his hand a Chaos Emerald.

"Now, let's put this plan into motion," Sonic told himself. "Hey there!…" okay, might have helped to practice this beforehand, "What are you doing with that!?"

"I am Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate life form! With this Emerald, I will rule this planet!"

"Not if I can help it!" Sonic ran to him, "Give me that you fake hedgehog!"

There was another bright flash, and the words "Chaos Control." Shadow had disappeared. Or not, he was only behind Sonic.

"Does he know light speed too?" Sonic asked, "No, it's that Chaos Emerald that gives him those powers!"

"Sorry, but I have no time for these childish games," and with that, Shadow was gone in yet another flash.

"Shadow? Is he that douche trying to kill me has been after?" Before Sonic had an answer he was bared down upon again by hundreds of GUN reinforcements.

Tails, who had actually listened to Sonic, was out in search of the Chaos Emeralds. It wasn't until Dr. Robotnik was spotted from the skies did any action pick up.

"Eggman! What are you planning this time?" he shouted to the mad doctor.

"Why tell you now? That would ruin all the fun!" Robotnik shouted to him and fired rockets from the flight pod. It was all Tails could do to avoid the unexpected attack.

"Hey, what are you doing? This isn't a fair fight!" Tails shouted to him desperately.

"Has it ever been? What with my SUPERIOR intellect it should have been obvious!"

The doctor's flight pod transformed into a walker as he attacked more. Tails had barely any room for error avoiding the bullets. The firepower became so mighty that even the doctor was losing control.

"I'll deal with you later once this machine is perfect!" The doctor transformed back into a flight pod and escape. Tails was exhausted from the altercation and thought about it. What was with that? Why was the doctor suddenly so aggressive, and what was that little walker thing he transformed into? There was no time to think. It was true, Dr. Robotnik had survived the crash in San Francisco and is probably working with Sonic's 'other.' There was no time to waste! Tails rushed off to create new technologies.

Knuckles, on the other hand, was sitting around waiting for success to reach him. It actually did. Knuckles heard on the radio that yet another Chaos Emerald had been stolen by a "large red menace." For a moment he thought they were talking about him. Then it occurred to Knuckles that it was Dr. Robotnik they were talking about. He had survived "Chaos's" attack, and wanted more Chaos Emeralds. What did he want now? He set off in search of the emeralds before the doctor could find them.

It wasn't long until Knuckles ended up at a crossroad. He looked over toward a building police cars were huddled around. Knuckles couldn't believe who was up there. It was Sonic! Oh, wait. That can't be Sonic, Sonic is _blue_, and that hedgehog is _black._

Shadow stood atop the building overlooking the city of humans, those who created him.

"Pathetic," Shadow told himself.

Shadow suddenly grasped in forehead in a sudden migraine that developed into near- blindness. He was having a flashback.

All he could see as the glass of an escape pod surrounding him.

"Maria!" he could hear himself shout.

There was a girl across the room that pointed to the objects outside the room they were in. It looked like space.

"Go to Earth," the human said, "Do it for them, for me."

There was a loud sound and then muffled shouting.

"Sayonara," the human said, "Shadow the Hedgehog."

And with that, Shadow returned to the real world.

"I remember… Maria." Shadow told himself. "For the people of this planet, I promise… REVENGE!"

Shadow leaped from the building in pursuit by the red and blue cows.

Back in the flooded ruins of San Francisco, there was only one remaining active location: GUN HQ. Thanks to the intricateness of the tunnels, none of the flood got to the actual HQ. There was an emergency entrance just outside of San Francisco just in case anything like this was to happen.

The operating systems in the facility were under constant repair as the low, low power fried most equipment. The Elder received the most power. He had fallen ill and his life-sustaining bed took a quarter of the power to the facility, and this was no 2 bedroom house. The HQ was the size of a normal Wal-Mart, plus a little bit more for the Elder's room.

"Sir, we've captured the escaped… mutant," a soldier told the Elder as he ran into the room.

"Bring it in!" the Elder shouted.

The soldier frantically ran back out the room and wheeled in Sonic the Hedgehog, who was bounded by every inch of his body to a 2 wheel dolly.

"So you're the mutant that has terrorized California for the past 5 days?" the Elder asked first.

"So you're the old fool that has his soldier's do his work?" was Sonic's first response.

"Leave, men. I want to be alone," the Elder spoke.

The soldiers once again frantically left the room.

"So now you want to handle things yourself after the subject is brought up? You're quite the leader!" Sonic taunted.

"Now, I have a few questions. If you comply, we might let you live,"

"Even after everything I've done!? But, _sir!_ Don't you want me dead?"

"You've done more in less than a week than anyone GUN has ever had the pleasure of beating. Tell me… who are you?"

Sonic braced himself for the most awesome thing possible. "I'm Sonic!" He tried his best to pose in the bounds of the dolly. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"And where are you from?"

"I'd tell you, but you'd never believe me."

"Oh, believe me, I've heard crazier things."

"You sure? Because I come from the future where anthropomorphic animals rule and humans have been reduced to farm animals!"

"That's… interesting. How long into the future is this?"

"What does it matter to you? You probably won't even make it to lunch, rather than 3274 MOBI!"

"Oh, no, I am interested! What all do these "new supreme beings" do for a living?"

'How should I know? I've spent my entire life defending the planet from the one remaining sophisticated human ON the planet!"

"Really? There are humans that _are_ smart in this time?"

"No, only Robotnik, and even saying 'smarter than cow' is stretching it."

"Robotnik? That's the human?"

"Yeah, he created a time machine to eliminate all his past failures on Mobius. That's how we got here."

"_We?_"

"Yeah: Me, Knuckles, Tails, and Eggman."

"Eggman is Robotnik?"

"That's right, now we are all trapped here until we find a way to get back to our time, but we can't just leave without the doctor's technology. And the only way to get that is to…"

"Pry it from his cold, dead hands."

"So here we stay."

"That's amazing, I can't believe it!"

"Told you."

The Elder paged for his men to return. When they entered:

"Soldiers! Make sure our friend here gets 5 star treatments!"

The soldiers were dumbfounded. "But, Elder! He _destroyed _San Francisco!"

"Do as I say or you will be returned to your families… in body bags."

The Commander stepped in, "Did someone say 'body bags?"

"Commander! Take our friend to the suite."

"Suite? …_Friend?"_

"That's right, now go."

The Commander, Sonic, and the three soldiers in there left the room.

"Do we really have to do this?" one of the soldiers asked the Commander.

"Of course not," the Commander quietly told the soldier, "The Elder's condition is clearly getting worse. He's delusional. Take the mutant to a holding cell. I don't care what the Elder 'says.' We kill them both tomorrow."

Sonic was taken to the holding cell and forced in.

"What the hell is this? Didn't your leader tell you not to do this?"

"You think the Elder cares about you? No way! That was just so you'd leave quietly."

The soldiers left silently despite Sonic's profanity.

The mad doctor took a detour through a dense forest that entered into a locked-in desert. Forest surrounding, only aircraft from above could see that a desert was even there, and the airspace had been closed off. No plane had entered in 50 years. Then, spiraling out of the sky 5 days before was one round maniac. Eggman had found the pyramid at the center of the desert and found a way in and immediately began building up the army. After those 5 days his force was as great as it was before Sonic came into play. Sonic! Focus on the target at hand. Sonic did this. Destroy Sonic, and the world is yours…

Eggman entered a compartment in the pyramid that led to a transportation device.

"So this is GUN's teleport? To think I've been here the whole time without even knowing it!" He looked over to his robots working on a rocket just in case the teleport malfunctions. "Well, here goes nothing…" The doctor stepped into the teleport and activated the machine. It sputtered for a second, but was fully functional. "Now let's find Shadow."

The teleport initiated and soon the doctor was mere particles travelling to the Space Colony ARK at the speed of light. The doctor materialized at the second pod on the ARK. He had to force the door open and looked around to see the pinnacle of human ingenuity in 1959.

"Maybe we aren't all cows…" the doctor told himself as he scavenged the ARK in search of Shadow. It wasn't until he entered a large hallway when he saw a sign labeled "Eclipse Cannon." He was curious, anything that could be a threat to those he wanted exterminated would work for him. He entered the room and found Shadow.

"Shadow! You ARE here!"

"As promised, I have provided you a weapon of mass destruction. We both want the same thing: Elimination of the human race. If you help me help you, we will both get what we want."

"That's a sinister plan, but this is a huge weapon! What will power it?"

"Emeralds, of course. These things have power that surpasses even your mind, Robotnik. There's nothing we couldn't do with them."

"I have a few, but certainly not all 7!"

"I have a few too. We will need all 7 to power this cannon. The power exerted from it now would only make a small crater. If we want total destruction, we will need all."

"Why would this just be out here in space? Was someone planning an attack to begin with?"

"My master, you should know! You created this as a failsafe incase aliens took over the planet. Very honorable."

_He must think I'm Gerald!_ Robotnik thought _If I can keep up this façade, Shadow may be more cooperative._ "Oh, right! How could I forget?"

"We need just two more Chaos Emeralds, so let's get to work."

The two parted and left the ARK in the respective ways they arrived.

On Earth there sun was finally rising, officially beginning day 3 of everyone's entry into L.A. Sonic wasn't exactly celebrating, being locked in a rackety holding cell rotting from flood and age isn't too enjoyable. He spent the entire night in a pacing rage. How could he just give away the whole team in an effort to escape? It was stupid, and now he's worse off than before. The entire night, back and forth. What could he have done differently? He didn't give a lot away, right? Names… locations… the future… That's a lot. Damn.

The only sign Sonic had that it was morning was a soldier's arrival.

"This is your wake up call," The soldier told him.

"I didn't sign up for that!"

"Think of it as compliments of your hosts."

"Tell them to fuck themselves with a cactus."

"Can do, sir." The soldier walked off.

_I have got to find SOME way out of here…_ but there was no way out. The metal bars of confinement may be frayed, but Sonic just didn't have the strength to break them. He looked all over the cell: about 20x10 feet of nothing. There was fungus growing in one corner, but it would take years for that to accomplish anything rotting away at the bars. Sonic knew he only had a few hours at most, but he just couldn't do anything but… _pray._

"Oh, Phil Collins, when my ancestors found all those items, we realized how civilization hadn't prayed to you since the humans weren't cows. In this time few people pray to you. Please answer this prayer: GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Nothing. Oh wait! No, just a rat. Ew. Those poor things were left behind in adaption in 3274 as well. They haven't changed much it seems. Just when Sonic had given up any hope for survival, there was a clanking sound. Sonic didn't think much of it at first. More rats. But it happened again. It sounded forceful, something a little rat couldn't do. Then came the explosion. A large hole in the wall of the cell had opened to blinding light and silhouettes. Sonic was ecstatic: Tails and Knuckles had found him.

"How did you pull that one off?" Sonic asked.

"You took my fake Emerald," Tails said, "I happened to put a tracking device in it in case it disappeared too."

"We should do that more often."

"Enough, let's go!" Knuckles shouted.

The door to the hall opened and in stepped 2 soldiers.

"What the HELL are you doing in here?" one asked.

"Oh, sorry, just the escape party! You're not invited!" Sonic attacked the two soldiers and was about to bolt down the hall when the other 2 stopped him.

"What are you doing? It's a straight line to the surface back there!"

"These douchebags have hindered this from the very beginning. We're already here, and I'm putting a stop to it now." And then he bolted down the hall.

The entire facility was on high alert, and those thousand remaining soldiers had suited up, prepared for anything. Sonic's escape wasn't high on the list of expectations, but when the blue blur tore through the building, some still managed to fire a few bullets. Sonic was running faster than he'd been lately, and he clenched his chest. That fucking collapsed lung. With the agonizing pain, it felt like forever when Sonic found the Elder's room. He kicked the door open, starling the Elder awake.

"Sonic! No need to be so rough, chap!" he laughed. Sonic wasn't bullshitting around. He threw a right hook into the skull of the weathered Elder.

"You think you can lie to my face after I tell you all you could ever want to know about me?" Sonic shouted to the now even more startled Elder.

"I don't know what you're talking about! You should have gotten top notch service!"

"You don't care about me! You want me dead just as much as that asinine Commander does!"

"Sonic," the Elder gets walloped again, "God damn, I don't get it!"

Sonic stepped away from the Elder. "You should have thought about that first… sir."

The Elder let out a soft shout that ended in a wheeze. Sonic karate kicked the Elder's old windpipe. The poor timeworn Elder couldn't breathe, feeling one of the most intense pains he'd hoped he'd never have to feel. It took 15 seconds for the Elder to fall out of his bed and onto the cold, unforgiving floor in a blind seizure-like fit. Sonic watched what he thought was his worst enemy struggle for breath for another half minute. He shook and shook. The Elder finally stopped moving. Sonic turned to leave when a stray bullet hit the wall right where he was standing. He looked over to see the Commander.

"Thanks, _friend!_" he shouted to Sonic, "That saves me the trouble of having to cut off the old fool myself!"

"You've got a heart of stone, asshat!"

"Speak for yourself! You just killed your only supporter in our entire corps!"

"Yeah, tossing in a holding cell made out of his own shit after telling me I'm getting 5 star service sounds like he's really in my favor!"

"He wanted you to get the service, you naïve chump! _I _was the one who sent you to the holding cell!"

Sonic out of rage leaped at the Commander, knocking the two down stumbling down an inclined hallway and into a control room. Sonic got up and away from the stunned Commander, but it wasn't enough. The Commander got up again and fired at Sonic. The bullet hit one of the control room's computers. Sonic umped all around, leading the bullets into GUN's important instruments of technology. When the Commander's clip ran dry, Sonic shoved past him and back to Tails and Knuckles. There were more soldier bodies on the ground.

"You about done down here?" Knuckles asked, knocking out the last guy, "We've been trying to hold them off for you, you know."

"Yes, come on. We're out!" The three ran out the hole in the cell that would take them right to the surface. The Commander entered the cell block and saw all the bodies and the hole.

"The others..." the Commander looked at the light emanating from the hole. "I'm gonna need more men."

Sonic led the three through the makeshift exit to the surface. They were just outside the flooded remains of San Francisco.

"You think that will paradox the future?" Sonic asked Tails.

"No, this place wouldn't have made it another 10 years anyway."

"Well, now that they're taken care of, we need to find Robotnik. Where could he be?"

"He's got to be working with that other hedgehog. The two have pretty similar attack patterns."

"They're getting the Chaos Emeralds. It has to be for something."

"It had better not be another giant monster." Knuckles chimed in.

"Yes because you really helped out with that."

"Enough bickering, let's find those clowns and our Emeralds."

"You're sure about this one Shadow?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, master."

"If I wanted to go to prison I would have turned myself in years ago."

"One of the two Chaos Emeralds left to find is on this island somewhere. We find it, then we leave."

Shadow and Eggman were on Prison Island, a place that officially didn't exist on document. Unknown to the world, thousands of sought after mega-criminals are taken here and usually killed. The announcement is made when the time is prime. The Chaos Emerald, however, is in the forest somewhere, but Eggman has gone a whole day without blowing something up, which means he's going to place a bomb on the island and blow it to oblivion. Eggman isn't the only one who is in search of the Emerald though.

"It says were close." Tails said.

"That's what it said last time, and where did we end up? Sewer."

"Yeah, well you won't be laughing when I'm RIGHT!"

Tails pointed to a glow in the distance.

"You're right. I hate it when you're right."

Sonic took a quick approach to the Emerald, and was cut off by none other than Shadow the Hedgehog.

"So here we are again!" the two caught in a staring contest.

"It's always a pleasure to be in your company," Shadow looked to the Chaos Emerald separating the two.

"You do know I'll be taking that!"

"Too bad you can't even harness its full power. The Emeralds are only as good as who uses them."

"You don't need to worry about that, faker!"

"Faker? Don't make me laugh. You aren't good enough to be MY fake."

"Really? Why don't we find out who's really the faker. Right here, right now!"

"Sorry, but I can't humor you this time. I'll be taking that Emerald now."

Shadow reached for the Emerald, but Sonic kicked away his hand."

"I don't think so, faker!"

"Oh well, you asked for it." Shadow suddenly lunged at Sonic, and the two were on. The fight was an assortment of powerful fists and stinging kicks. After a while Sonic's lung acted up, giving Shadow an opening for a kick to the head that send Sonic to the other side of the clearing.

"Shadow! Where are you? The bomb's going off in 3 minutes, get the Emerald and get out of there!" a sound came from out of nowhere.

"A bomb?"

"That fat moron, he can't go one day…" Shadow took the Emerald and left in a flash.

"I need to get Tails and Knuckles off this island!"

Sonic ran back through the forest to Tails and Knuckles.

"What took you, and where's that Emerald?"

"No time to explain! There's a bomb on this island, we need to get out of here now!"

The three returned to the Tornado V and escaped the island, while on the other side of the island Eggman and Shadow made their escape as well. The island went up in an awe inspiring explosion. Everyone cleared the fireball.

Across the sea the GUN Commander was livid.

"He destroys San Francisco, our HQ…"

"Sir," one soldier said, "Prison Island has been attacked."

"… and Prison Island!"

The Commander threw their status book at the decrepit walls of the flooded out home they'd taken up shop in.

"Those damn mutants…" was all he could come up with.

"Sonic, only one lead left." Tails said once they had returned to the workshop. Sunset was upon them.

"And only one Emerald left…" Sonic sighed. "We've lost already. We have no idea what we're up against this time. There's another… me."

"Oh, come on! We've faced harder challenges before!"

"No we haven't."

"Yeah, you're right."

Sonic put his face in his hands, "This collapsed lung… The entire planet hates us, and we're the ones who have to save it."

"Sonic, quit feeling sorry for yourself!" Knuckles shouted to him, "You're the big hero! Suck it up!"

"Oh I'm sucking it up alright. I'm feeling the love."

"Tails, tell us the lead before Sonic starts cutting his wrists."

"Well, this detector has picked up one last signal in a desolate forest in a plane the humans call 'Death Valley'. It's all we have."

Sonic looked up, "Good job, Tails."

"Alright then! We'll leave tomorrow!"

The sounds of machinery began to rise in the distance.

"Tails, did you leave something on?"

Outside the workshop were hundreds of red and blue cows, guns drawn and ready.

"This is the Commander of GUN! You have exactly 5 seconds to give yourselves up peacefully!"

Knuckles looked out a window.

"Oh, shit," was all he could say.

The first shot was fired, and soon the entire workshop was engulfed in a frenzy of lead. The place had been ratty to begin with, and Tails's repairs weren't meant to sustain constant firepower. They only had one choice, Tails's new walker that was supposed to be based off what he'd seen dancing with Robotnik.

"Hope this think doesn't suck!" Sonic shouted as they ran out the back door.

They had GUN forces in full pursuit. The red and blue lit up the night as they raced down the mountain and onto a California expressway.

"We need to split up, they can be taken better in smaller groups!"

"Right, let's go!"

The three leaped from the walker and raced down the expressway. The walker went off like a proximity mine when the red and blue cows came to it. The explosion rocked the busy expressway, sending civilian and 'law bringers' alike flying in all directions in individual fireballs. The three split up at an exit in the expressway. They took to the city of L.A. with GUN in chase.

Knuckles ran down Hollywood Blvd. without a care. The red and blue cows that followed him clearly were the most careless, as Knuckles ran down the streets, the awe struck people watching were struck as well by the cows. Knuckles found his way to a building, latched on and began to climb it. Once he reached the top he was met with three soldiers.

"Okay, I know I'm not that fast, but this is ridiculous."

"Put your hands where we can see them!"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you can see them. Here, take a closer look!" Knuckles threw a punch into the chest of the soldier, sent another into the one to his left, rebounded and got the other guy. All three soldiers fell to the ground. "Stupid cows." He said as he walked off.

Tails was followed by most marksmen in helicopters, which made going in any direction a bad idea. He came upon a building and slipped in, a few ground soldiers followed. Tails found the scenario similar to when he got his workshop, just with a lot more guns. He used what he knew he did wrong the last time and crept through the building. The soldiers split up in search, and Tails managed to single out one of the guys. The soldier was small enough for even Tails to overpower, and he took the soldier's gun. As he tried to figure out how to use it he heard: "It's armed!" And immediately was fired upon from all directions. He dove out of the way and tried to use the gun. It fired and ricochet into one of the soldiers. The firepower was becoming more concentrated and accurate; it was all Tails could do to dodge it all. He managed to take out another 2 guys, but the bullets kept coming. How many of them were there?

Sonic leapt from building to building, the ground units underneath on the streets insignificant compared to the douche-monkey hovering above.

"Shadow, I'll give you one last chance! Give up now, and we will let you live!"

"For the last time I'M SONIC! Sonic the Hedgehog! Are you blind? Shadow is black, and I'm blue!"

"Bring me in closer," the Commander told the pilot. The helicopter glided closer to Sonic, who was still hopping over buildings. The Commander took a shot, but wildly missed.

"I'm not the bad guy you damn fool!" Sonic shouted to him.

"This is between you and me Shadow! For what you did!"

Sonic let out a scream and jumped toward the helicopter and pounced onto the Commander, knocking them about the helicopter.

"I am not SHADOW!" The constant shifts in weight threw the helicopter off course, and just when Sonic was about to finish off the Commander, he looked out to see an approaching building. He raced out the window. The pilot regained control long enough to dodge the building. Sonic fell down onto the roof of another building. The force sent him through the roof and down subsequent floors. Eventually he reached the bottom of the building, heaps of debris underneath him.

"What the hell was that," he heard a voice shout.

"Tails? You're down here?"

"Yeah, I think you just saved my ass."

"It's not the first time. Come on, let's find Knuckles and go to this forest."

It was a surprise when the forest opened up into a desert.

"The map says it's a forest all the way through!"

"There's something over there,"

They approached a formidable object. It was another giant triangle.

"Pyramids again?"

They went to what looked like an entrance and found a way in. When they followed the pathway through the pyramid, they came upon a locked door.

"Three keys… three keys we don't have."

"I'll find them!" Knuckles shouted, "I'll be back in a minute!"

Knuckles took the pyramid by storm, looking for anything that looked like a key. He used his mad treasure hunter skills and couldn't find anything. He searched and searched and it wasn't until he entered a chamber of the pyramid that looked advanced.

"That's Eggman's emblem. Is this his base?" he found one of the keys and continued through Eggman's facilities. The place stayed confined and he only saw enough to get him the other two keys. He returned to Sonic and Tails.

The door opened up into another large area. They continued forward into another room with only a computer.

"Space Colony ARK?" Tails asked reading through the files, "Shut down in 1959, reason undisclosed."

"That's a new lead!" Sonic jumped with joy, "We just need to find our way to the Space Colony and we'll find Robotnik!"

"Will you?" A looming voice asked. Eggman appeared in the doorway.

"Where are the Chaos Emeralds?" was Sonic's first response.

"Oh, they're safe! I've been taking good care of them, I promise you!"

"Then you should give them back, and we can keep this clean!"

"Why? We'd miss out on all the fun!"

The floor behind Eggman in the open area collapsed, and up came a giant Gollum.

"Emphasis on the 'fun' part." Eggman added when he entered his flight pod.

Sonic leaped toward the Gollum and was swatted away by the giant sand beast. He ran around the back and found conveniently placed platforms leading right to its head. One shot was enough to stun the Gollum, and Knuckles finished it off.

"That was too easy, Eggman! I think you're losing your touch!"

"You won't be saying that when I unleash my master plan!" the mad doctor flew off to another compartment, and when Sonic arrived, Robotnik was gone. There was a teleportation device that had been deactivated.

"We lost him. Now what do we do?"

"He set the coordinates for the ARK. Looks like he was going there to begin with!"

"That's great and all, but how do _we_ get there?"

Knuckles pointed out the door, "I think I found something you'll find useful."

He led them to another compartment that had a rocket sitting in it.

"Looks like Eggman had a failsafe. He really is smarter than those cows. Tails, can you run this thing?"

"Operate would be stretching the world, attempting would suffice."

"Works for me! Let's finish this!

They entered the rocket and began launch sequence. The roar of the engine was louder than anything any of them had ever heard before.

"Tails! You sure this is going to work?"

"No! Not at all!"

The top of the pyramid released and the rocket propelled out of it. Soon enough they were in space. The ARK was a giant satellite out there in space, how nothing ever collided with it was beyond comprehension. The rocket landed safely on the ARK, and the three exited into the Space Colony.

"So this is it? The best humans could do 50 years ago?"

"Meh, decent." Tails looked around the ship's interior and found casings on the ground. "Looks like something serious happened here."

"We need to find Eggman. He must have been the source of the signal the whole time. If he has all 7 Emeralds, we've got to stop him now."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"Easy! Storm the gates! We go right up to Eggman and take him out!"

"I've found a map of the facility!"

"Well, that's convenient."

"Oh my Phil Collins…"

"That can't be good."

"It isn't, apparently, there's this thing called an Eclipse Cannon on this thing."

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea, but if Eggman's here I assume that's what he wants access to, so it can't be good."

"That's got to be what he wants the Emeralds for."

"There's one last thing here. The power to the ARK must be regulated. Too much and it will overpower the cannon, destroying it!"

"Well, it's clear what we need to do; now how are we going to do it?"

They thought for a moment. Knuckles merely gazed out the window.

_I wonder if that's what Mobius will look like…_he thought to himself.

Sonic and Tails came up with the plan at practically the same time: "The fake Emerald!"

"Sonic, if you can get the fake Emerald, into the mainframe of the ARK, which ought to overpower the cannon!"

"Alright! Let's do this!"

"Wait, what do I do?" Knuckles asked.

"You can… I don't know, do whatever you want."

The three split up.

Sonic raced across strange platforms in the ARK. Eggman's robots had turned up for the first time in so long Sonic was beginning to miss them. Racing through the ARK was enough to get his lung acting up again. He eventually made it into eye's sight of the mainframe when he tried to contact Tails.

"I'm at the mainframe! Where does the Emerald go?"

"You've got to…" there was an explosion, "Oh, no! Knuckles, don't… Eggman!" The line cut from there.

"Eggman? That fat bastard can't let anything go!" Sonic had been so close to the mainframe, but had to turn back to find Tails and Knuckles… and Eggman. Speaking of the mad doctor, his voice was broadcasting across the ARK.

"You almost got me that time, but now it's my turn!" the evil voice broadcasted, "Now your friends get to pay for your faults! Some hero!"

Sonic stepped into the elevator the room Tails said they would be in. The elevator stopped and the door opened.

"Well, Sonic! You found us! Hand over the Emerald," The doctor pulled out a gun, "if you care for your friends."

Knuckles had been knocked out and Tails was too near the doctor to try anything. There was nothing they could do. Sonic contemplated. Handing over a fake Emerald would get him back his friends, and shouldn't be able to power the Eclipse Cannon! It would kill two birds with one stone.

"You sure are one big time bad guy!" Sonic approached the doctor, and out of nowhere a glass tube enclosed him. He had stepped into one of the escape pods, and was trapped.

"You really think you could trick me?" The mad doctor laughed, "You couldn't fool anyone with a fake Emerald!

"How did you know it was fake?" Tails panicked

"Because you just told me!"

Things were definitely not going as planned.

Sonic clenched his lung again, "Tails, make sure Knuckles knows when he wakes up…"

Tails didn't know what to say, their world crumbling down around them.

"I'm counting on you, stop this mad man…"

"Get out of there, Sonic!" was all Tails could say.

"Don't forget, just keep running."

The victorious doctor slammed his fist down on a button, and the escape pod soared out of the Space Colony ARK. Sonic looked down at the fake Emerald.

"It has most capabilities of a normal Emerald?" Sonic picked up the Emerald and clenched his chest, "But… can I do this?" The escape pod detonated above the atmosphere of the planet.

"Sonic!" Tails had no idea what to do.

"Alright then, now what do I do with you two?"

Tails felt fear, sorrow… _overcoming_ fear… and anger. Blind rage in fact.

"Sonic told me… the small, useless lackey who does nothing, while he does all the difficult work… to do something for him… I won't give up! I won't lose!"

"Are you about done over there? My glorious empire isn't going to build itself!"

Tails pulled out the gun he'd taken the night before. "Eggman! I've had enough of this!"

"Very well, if you want to die so badly…" Robotnik's flight pod transformed into the walker again, but Tails was prepared this time. First, it sent a barrage of missiles, which were easily dodged. The commotion stirred Knuckles awake.

"What's going on?" he asked, shaken.

"Knuckles! Turn off the Cannon!"

"What?"

"Just go!"

Knuckles ran out of the room in search of whatever.

Tails jumping all over was exhausting him, and a stray bullet brought him back to the ARK. The mad doctor had turned to machine gun fire, and one of the bullets nicked Tails. Even that was surprisingly unbearable.

"See? I told you I was superior! There was no way you could ever beat me!"

Tails was nearly finished, exhausted from dancing, blind rage guiding him. There was only one thing left to try. He raised the gun to the doctor.

"We'll see about that…" He said to the doctor, and fired.

The bullet carried its way through the machine gun fire all the way to the doctor. It hit his walker dead center in the power supply.

"What? No!" the doctor shouted as his walker powered down.

Tails looked in shock at what had just transpired. The doctor had lost.

Knuckles ran through the halls hearing only gunfire all around him. It was all he could do to hope Tails was alright. But he still had no idea where he was going. It wasn't until he turned a corner and a flash of light stopped him in his tracks. The light turned blue until the body of Sonic the Hedgehog fell to the floor.

"Sonic? What the hell? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just fine. Where are we at?"

"I don't know, but that Cannon is going to fire if we don't find its power supply."

"Leave that to me!" Sonic raced down the hall, despite the raging pain in his chest.

He glided seamlessly through the halls of the ARK. He couldn't find any sign of the control room. He tried his last path, but kept turning in the wrong directions, leading to somewhere he hadn't been before. He tried every direction, nothing. It wasn't until he went down a hall leading outside the actual ARK did he see anything. Down the long, long hallway was Shadow the Hedgehog.

"You've proven to be persistent." Shadow told him.

"What can I say? I surprise myself sometimes."

"That's too bad, it's the last time you'll be able to surprise anyone."

"We'll see about that, faker."

"Let's go then!"

They raced down the hall and into the void of space, only the 'road' keeping them down. The two continuously attacked each other, but neither left an opening. They kept running down the 'road,' occasionally jumping out of the way of the other. It wasn't until Sonic pulled ahead of Shadow did anything happen. Sonic had just been running, thinking Shadow was right behind, but then Sonic stopped running, clenching his chest. That damn lung is going to kill him. Out of nowhere above him, Shadow appeared in a blaze of light through Chaos Control. If it hadn't been for a short moment between the two events, Sonic wouldn't have looked up, jumped out of the way and back into Shadow. Shadow slid and hopped back onto his feet. The two were caught in another staring contest.

"Why do you do these things, Shadow? Why are you working with the bad guy?"

"I don't need to answer to the likes of you. I've nearly defeated you."

"If this stalemate is your way of thinking you're winning, you must be some hot shot."

"I am the ultimate life form, created to be the greatest, strongest being to ever live."

"You've hardly put a dent in my defenses!"

"But, every second YOU waste running your mouth is another second away from saving your precious planet."

"It's not my planet, not yet."

"It doesn't matter whose planet it is, the inhabitants must pay for what they did to Maria!"

"Maria?" Sonic wasn't able to finish his question before the two engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Neither continued to give an inch. It wasn't until they both were knocked back, and Sonic was able to regain footing faster, sending a kick into Shadow, knocking him back. Shadow tried to use Chaos Control again, but Sonic had taken the Chaos Emerald from him.

The mad doctor screamed and beat at his machine, refusing to accept defeat. Tails wasn't any less surprised. Never once had he been able to really do anything successfully without Sonic's supervision. It would have to become the regular now.

"I did it Sonic… I won," he spoke into the communication device out of honor.

"Great job!" was the response.

Well then.

"Sonic!"

"Take a look outside!"

The Eclipse Cannon was charging. It was nearly to the point of no return when the entire appendage began to collapse into itself. Only one small body could be seen from the laser. It was Sonic the Hedgehog. He'd made it to the cannon's control room and had overridden the entire power supply. Knuckles was nearby, able to bash a lot of holes open so Sonic could get to the control room quicker. The entire team was able to stop the mad doctor… right?

Tails hadn't been paying enough attention to the defeated doctor, and he slipped out of the room. So what if that part of the plan didn't work? It wasn't even the original plan! Of course the Cannon would fail, it hadn't been maintained in over 50 years, the fact it even turned on was surprising to the doctor. Who cares about the Cannon? It was only extra to get rid of Sonic, and while it didn't work, it didn't faze the doctor. He continued through the beaten walls of the ARK, right past Knuckles, and to a door concealed by code.

" s," the doctor spelt out. The door opened and he stepped in.

The only thing in there was a computer and a slot for the Chaos Emerald.

"You're welcome, Gerald," the doctor said as he inserted the Chaos Emerald.

The machine immediately roared to life as matrixes flew across the computer screen. _All the codes were correct_, the doctor observed. He laughed in victory. "The world is mine!"

Warning lights began flashing around the ARK, catching Sonic's attention and breaking Tails out of the victorious trance. They and Knuckles met up at the head of the ARK, overlooking the entire planet. T.V. screens all across the ARK activated, revealing to everyone who had planned this from the beginning.

"The Project was created for the intent of war, but I gave it emotions," the old man on the screens spoke He looked like Eggman, only about 50 years older. "I wanted to abandon it, like E-244, but I realized its true powers after so many tests. It was compassionate, understanding… but you've taken all that away."

"What makes you say that?" another voice off camera said.

"That's how it's PROGRAMMED!" the look-alike snapped back, "If it's home location cannot be found, it goes to the last location it had been before hand and sets to most recent emotion. I know this, because there hasn't been a night I've gone to sleep without hating those humans… that killed me."

"Where is the Project?" Off camera again.

"Not here."

"You must give it to us."

"You can take it from my cold, dead hands. Fear, for one day Shadow will return, and you will wish you'd never come to the Space Colony ARK!"

"Should've listened Gerald."

That's where the tape ends.

"I don't get it?" Tails said, "Is that the Eclipse Cannon he was talking about?"

"Shadows return? What has Shadow even done besides stealing a few things?"

"I don't think it was either of them." Knuckles said, and the warning lights turned on.

"What's going on now?" Sonic shouted.

All over the televisions now read Security Breach.

"I'm getting to the bottom of this." Sonic said, and he zoomed out of the room.

He passed each room looking for anything out of place. It wasn't until he saw Shadow overlooking the planet that he stopped.

"Why did you want to destroy the humans? I mean, sure there's a few I wouldn't mind wiping off the face of that planet, but why all of them?"

"They took my life from me… they took Maria."

"Who is this Maria?"

Shadow hesitated; "I…" the flashback began again.

"Project: Shadow! You've been deemed by the United States government as a threat to society! You will now be terminated by the best soldiers GUN has to offer."

Shadow awoke from the sleeping chamber to Maria.

"Maria, why have you awakened me?" he asked her.

"There is no time to explain, we must GO!" Maria took Shadow by the hand as they both exited Shadow's holding chamber. The first corner they came to had 3 GUN soldiers waiting, and when they turned, 2 more materialized in the hall behind them. They took to a small passageway through the scientists' quarters. As they raced through, the scientists looked in awe at the two of them fleeing, only to be gunned down by… GUN when they came after them. The soldiers were given clear orders, NO ONE on the ARK is to leave alive. Shadow and Maria made it to a long passageway to the escape pods.

"We're nearly there, Shadow!" Maria shouted to the hedgehog. Immediately, more soldiers followed them through the passageway. They entered the escape pod room and Shadow was showed into one of them.

"I can't leave you Maria; I've sworn to protect everyone on this ARK!" Shadow shouted to Maria.

Maria pointed to Earth, "You can't protect me anymore, protect them!"

The two locked eyes as the soldiers burst through the door.

"Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog."

Maria pressed the button. There was the sound of pressure releasing and gunfire. Shadow was in the escape pod, looking back at the receding ARK.

"I will, Maria," Shadow said, and came out of the flashback.

"Shadow? Are you alright?" Sonic asked.

"Maria… was my only friend… killed by those GUN soldiers like an animal. THEY are the ones who I should have tried to attack… and now we're here… and I've made a mistake."

"Shadow, it's okay. You didn't hurt anyone down there. Me on the other hand you have, but no one who didn't deserve it. We can find those soldiers and take them down together!"

"No. This is between me and 'GUN'."

A voice came from outside: "Shadow!"

"No fucking way." Sonic said as he looked out into space. There was a large spaceship outside that looked like something out of a Sci-fi film. Emblazed on the outside was the GUN emblem. They had come to space as well to make everything even more difficult.

"Shadow, you and all the other mutants are under arrest by GUN and Earth authorities. If you do not comply we will use lethal force!"

"Is that 'GUN'?" Shadow asked.

"What gave that away, the announcement or the convenient timing?"

On the ship the Commander was ready for a full scale attack.

"You have 5 minutes to give us your choice!" he spoke into the external microphone.

"That's never worked before, sir. What makes you think it will now?" a soldier asked.

"I know it isn't going to work, it's just official procedure. I'm not getting fired to get a 5 minute head start." The Commander took a sip of Starbucks and got back on the mike.

"Only 4 minutes left! You'd better hurry!"

"Look, if you want to deal with these fools, be my guest. I'm going to find what's up with this alarm." Sonic ran off in search of the source.

He continued his way past every room he could find. He eventually caught up with Knuckles.

"I've already covered this half of the ARK. There's nothing in here, what's going on?"

"If you've gotten that half, there's only one place neither of us have been. There's a large area underneath the rest of the ARK. It's our last option."

"Ok, let's go." Knuckles followed Sonic out of the ARK and through the 'road' that stretched to the lower part of the ARK. It was a pretty big room, biology growing all over the walls and water puddles spread all around. It was either an experiment dumping ground or something big happened there. Only technology in the room was a computer screen at the far end of the room. When Sonic and Knuckles were on their way over, it activated and Gerald's voice was broadcasted again.

"You just don't get it do you?" he told the people off screen, "Even if you kill me, my legacy will live on within the walls of this ARK. I created this! _**I**_ created my own dominion, and nothing any of you do can stop that!"

"So why are you so worried about Death?" someone of screen asked.

The sinister Robotnik on screen gave a chuckle, "You, my friend, are the one who should be worried about my death. One day, you will all feel my vengeance for what happened this day, May 31st, 1959, and the world will once again know the name, Robotnik!"

The ARK began to violently vibrate, as the biology on the walls began to collapse and metal on metal scraping corroded the walls.

"What is going on?" Knuckles shouted.

Shadow ran into the room, "What have you morons done?"

"We didn't do anything!" Sonic screamed over the droning.

There was an explosion of light and the sounds of a thousand laser beams. The light faded as the sounds reached the highest possible pitch. At the center of the room was a giant prehistoric monster: The Bio-Lizard. The monstrosity gave out a shattering roar, knocking each of the adapted species through a loop.

"E-244!" Sonic shouted, "This is Gerald Robotnik's vengeance against humanity!"

"Sonic!" Tails had yelled through the radio, "The ARK is on a collision course with the planet! If you don't stop it, you can forget about the future!"

"Are you kidding? There's no step Gerald hadn't taken to eliminate humanity…"

"I'll deal with this beast." Shadow told them and he began to disorient the beast. It didn't help, as the lizard struck with deadly force Shadow down.

"This is too powerful, we can't beat it," Shadow eventually said, "The only way to stop it is to get rid of it."

"Can you really Chaos Control it out of here?" Sonic asked.

"No, it's too much, the power of the beast is unparalleled." The three had to jump out of the way of the lizard's attacks.

Back in the actual ARK, Tails had been working. The systems indicated that the ARK was spiraling at an astonishing rate toward the planet. Using only a Chaos Emerald and brute knowledge about circuitry, Tails was able to stop the movements of the ARK toward the planet. Then something unexpected happened. There was an incredibly loud screech as metal tore away from the ARK. Once the noise stopped, Sonic came on the radio.

"Tails… E-244 is gone."

He looked out the window of the ARK once again to see the Bio-Lizard had attached itself to the Space Colony.

"And it's doing WHAT!?" Sonic shouted.

"It's maintaining the ARK's course into the planet! There's no way to stop the destruction!"

Sonic dropped the radio, speechless.

"What do we do now?" Knuckles asked no one.

Sonic and Shadow locked eyes once again, but there was a different atmosphere between the two, as if they both knew what to do.

"You say you're the ultimate life form?" Sonic asked.

"Of course!" Shadow responded.

"You also say you're composed of the Chaos Emeralds?"

"That's true."

"If there is anything that we can do…" Sonic took out the Emeralds, "we can go Super."

"Super?"

"There are special powers within these Emeralds, that far extend biology, chemistry, and you can just throw the physics book out the window!"

"I know that."

"You can probably go Super too Shadow. I can and I don't even know how!"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm telling you that if you truly want to apologize to the world, avenge Maria and the Space Colony ARK, and save yourself from… you, this could be the very solution."

"Okay, what do I do?"

That very moment, a flash grenade went off, and GUN burst into the extension. Sonic took the opportunity to grab Knuckles and hide. There were hundreds of soldiers filling into the rotted room. The center parted as the Commander stepped forward.

"Game's up Shadow," he spoke.

"And who the hell are you?" Shadow asked him.

"Don't even pretend, you think that after everything you've done I will let you get away again?"

Sonic stepped into view, "That's what you've said for the past week, give it up!"

The Commander couldn't believe his eyes. The hedgehog he had been chasing wasn't Shadow at all. Everything was going on at once, the Commander felt so victorious, but at the very same time, it felt like he had lost.

"Men! Leave this room!" he shouted. The soldiers hesitated, "That is a fucking order!" That time the message got through. The room slowly began to empty of hundreds of soldiers until it was only the Commander, Sonic, Shadow, and wherever Knuckles was.

"Shadow…_s?_" he asked.

"You just won't accept it…" Sonic said, "I am not Shadow. I am Sonic the Hedgehog. I come from the future. This is Shadow. I'm not Shadow."

"This…"

"Can't be possible? Maybe you should have listened to your 'delusional' Elder for once."

"You've caused so much destruction…"

"I've been trying to stop the cow that's been causing all this destruction and all you've done is get in my way. Now look at all this!"

"Cow?"

"Dr. Robotnik, an insane robotic manufacturer from the future as well. He sent all of us 'mutants' back in time."

"All? There really are more?"

"You fucking jackass, are you blind? You've been trying to kill each of us. Each. Of. Us. If you had arrested the doctor when you had us all cornered, this would never have happened, and the world wouldn't be about to be smothered by E-244."

"E-244? Gerald's only cancelled project?"

"Yeah… wait… how do _you_ know about E-244?"

The Commander hesitated, fighting back emotions. "I was… on the Space Colony ARK the day it was invaded."

"…what?" Shadow and Sonic both said at the same time.

"I was only a kid, son of one of the scientists. Gerald was always so loving and compassionate, and he used those emotions to develop Project: Shadow. I thought he truly made a compassionate project… but that was all taken away when I saw Shadow escaping… and Maria…"

"I didn't do that, you old fool!" Shadow shouted to him, "It was the very same people you're commanding!"

"Shadow… that's absurd! The GUN soldiers found me on the ARK, they said there was no way off of the ARK, their… leader had lied to them… They sent me off on the only remaining escape pod, and when I returned… the headlines were the Space Colony ARK was destroyed, killing everyone on it. The GUN heads kept me around, knowing I would overtake the branch when older. I had been saved by the GUN, I would never… betray them."

"They made you leader, because they could trust you?"

"It took a long time… maybe 20 years before they let me out in the real world again. I was supposed to be dead, everyone on the ARK was. The heads never spoke to me until I became the Commander. The Elder… the one you killed, made me the Commander in the 90s. He said I would do great things for the branch. I did as I was told for another 20 years. I didn't tell anyone about what I saw, it was between me and Shadow to begin with. When I heard the descriptions of you from witnesses on the 23rd… I knew it _had_ to be you. There weren't any other 3 foot hedgehogs on the planet… so I thought. The time I believed had come, you'd returned, and I was going to kill you myself." The Commander drew his gun to Shadow the Hedgehog.

"Right," Shadow stared right through the barrel, "You should at least let me give my side of the story.

"You have one minute… Shadow."

"So be it, I was awaken by Maria…" Shadow explained his flashback in the minute, and throughout the entire time, the Commander didn't loosen his grip. "And I was launched into space as your branch of enforcement gunned down your 'best friend'. So did I do it in under a minute?"

The Commander kept the gun up, "Shadow, you expect me to believe that after all these years, those soldiers could have gotten out of sight in the amount of time it took you to escape?"

"Think very carefully, you nitwit," Sonic now spoke, "The soldiers found you right outside that room. They could have slipped out and tricked you!"

"Keep out of this… you," the Commander said, "Shadow, you explain that to me."

Shadow tried to keep emotionless, "Maria wasn't only your friend. She was also… my companion. We spend so much time together, and I never would betray her."

"Anyone could pull that lie," the Commander yelled at him.

"Really? Because Gerald himself programed me to protect Maria at all times. She forced me into the escape pod. She knew how I protected her, so she told me to protect the humans on that planet, clearly from cows like you!"

The Commander stepped back, and looked into the eyes of Shadow. There was no emotion behind the eyes. There was only one thing the Commander could come up with.

"Sincerity," he said, "You mean it. Shadow… I'm sorry," the Commander dropped to his knees. "How could I have been so misguided? I've spent my entire life replaying that moment, and every single time… I disregarded you. I can't be sorrier."

"Well, apology not accepted, you disgraceful fuck!" Shadow shouted to him, "What about Sonic over here? You've been after him for the past week and you can't tell him you're sorry?"

Sonic never thought he would hear Shadow defending him… anyone for that matter. The Commander was clearly surprised as well.

"Sonic?" was all he could say.

"There you go! Finally! He got the name right!"

"I cannot tell you how sorry I am…"

"Could we cut the shit and get on with things? All this talking has done nothing, and we're still in a beeline to the planet!" Knuckles shouted from across the room.

"Yes! You get your damn soldiers off this ARK, and you're forgiven!"

"What?" Shadow shouted.

"Yes, sir!" the Commander ran out the room.

"What's wrong with you?" Shadow yelled to Sonic, "We could have fixed so much, and you just let him get away?"

"Just wait, Shadow. This isn't over yet."

The Commander piled his troops onto the ship and took off. He felt great, like a thousand pounds had been taken his shoulders. He re-ran through the conversation, feeling better each time. He felt awesome, it overcame him. Evil thoughts filled his mind again, he had beaten Shadow! That Sonic character, who he had been after relentlessly for a week, just let him leave! What an idiot! There was no chance he'd leave quietly; this was too good to be true.

Sonic ran out of the room and onto the 'road' once again. He stopped to see the GUN ship facing him again.

"See? I told you." He said to Shadow.

"Well? Looks like it's checkmate on you, Shadow! And Sonic." The Commander announced through the speakers of the ship.

"How is this helping?" Shadow asked.

"Take hold," Sonic handed Shadow a Chaos Emerald. The rest began to orbit them, "They're all in the same place now, which makes this a lot easier."

The Emeralds' powers engulfed the two in a yellow flash, and Sonic and Shadow were soon blazing enigmas flying above the 'road', staring right into the GUN ship.

"How is this happening?" Shadow asked.

"Don't question it, just roll with it." Sonic shouted as he led Shadow up to eye level with the Commander on the GUN ship.

"What are you fools waiting for? Shoot them!" the Commander shouted to his soldiers.

"Sir, they're not coming up on the radars, it's like they're not even there!"

"Attack them manually! Kill them!"

The machine guns fired on the two flaming hedgehogs. A thousand bullets a second and not a single one effective.

"Why are they still there?" The Commander furiously assaulted his men.

"Our bullets are useless, Commander!"

"So Shadow, are you ready for this?" Sonic asked.

"I think so, what about you?"

"I've been waiting forever to finally do this."

The two locked hands and they began to blaze straight ahead, and Sonic prepared once again to engage light speed. The two began to blur from the perspective of the Commander.

"Kill those things now, before they disappear!"

"We can't do anything, sir! None of our weapons are effective!"

The world around Sonic and Shadow stopped. Bullets in midflight merely ceased, but Sonic didn't. He kept a firm grip on Shadow as the two spiraled straight toward the GUN ship. The commander could see the light trail approaching his ship.

"Oh shit," was all he could say.

Sonic and Shadow sheared right through the front of the GUN ship, tearing away the metal as they burned right through. Sonic was able to get a glimpse of the Commander's face as the two tore right through his biology effortlessly. Priceless. They continued through the ship, ripping down the middle of all base components. They annihilated the engine of the ship, and the metal on metal as they tore through the ship caused the interior to heat up. The rubber protections between the engine's parts merely melted away, and the metal boiled between the gas particles, causing combustion. Sonic and Shadow exited through the back of the ship, and even in light speed they could feel the heat as the ship was eviscerated behind them. Using the Chaos Emeralds impressed Sonic. He wasn't even tired after that light speed. The flaming particles of the once great GUN ship slowly disintegrated away as Sonic and Shadow approached the Bio-Lizard.

"How do we beat this thing?" Sonic asked.

"There's sure to be a weak spot. E-244 wasn't perfected when abandoned."

Sonic observed the Bio-Lizard's exterior. The Bio-Lizard had circuitry extending out of it. "If we can break those circuits, I'm sure it will deactivate it!"

"It doesn't let anything near it, how do you expect us to get over there?"

"Look at us! We're unstoppable! Just keep running, Shadow!"

"That doesn't make any sense in context but okay."

The two began charging the Bio-Lizard, but were immediately spotted and attacked by the lizard's electrical attacks. It sent wild bolts of lightning to the two hedgehogs. They had to disperse to avoid the bolts, and Sonic was able to get close to the lizard.

"Distract it Shadow!" Sonic shouted desperately to Shadow. As Sonic collided with the lizard, he began pulling at the circuitry, trying to break the connection. It wouldn't break. Then he was about to try to light speed through the circuit, but was slapped away by the lizard. He was knocked all the way back to Shadow.

"Any other ideas?" Sonic asked.

"That thing is the prototype of ultimate life. Gerald created it without weaknesses."

"There has to be something!" Sonic shouted.

Then the most unlikely thing possible happened.

"Sonic," a voice said from the radio, "Can you hear me?"

"Dr. Eggman?" Sonic asked the radio.

"That's right. Gerald did give E-244 a weakness. The beast has life supports systems on its neck, without those it cannot survive."

"Thank you… Robotnik," Sonic told Shadow the plan.

"That would explain all the security when you got so close. Let's do this!"

Sonic took another run to the Bio-Lizard. The beast launched patterns of electricity and laser beams toward the yellow enigma. Sonic easily avoided the attacks and soared right through the support on the neck. The lizard's roar was immense.

"Sonic, I'll take it from here!" Shadow shouted to Sonic, who was still near the lizard. It slapped Sonic out of the way once again and focused right onto Shadow.

"I am the ultimate life form, you hear me? You are nothing!" he shouted as he collided with the other support. The lizard roared again, breaking the sound barriers one last time. After that the beast collapsed and the ARK continued falling. Shadow met up with Sonic again.

"We need to get rid of that thing!" Sonic shouted.

Shadow looked to him, "Follow me."

Sonic caught on right away as the two progressed toward the falling ARK. When they reached the ARK, they both shouted, "CHAOS CONTROL!"

The void of space lit up once again as Sonic and Shadow engulfed the Bio-Lizard in the yellow glow. The screams of a thousand years emerged again as the lizard was tore away from the ARK. Shadow ripped the rings off his wrist, instantly becoming more powerful.

"Get out here Sonic!"

"No! We're doing this together!"

"Leave! You have a planet to protect! This moment is why I was created!"

When Sonic stayed, Shadow merely pushed him out of the beams.

"Shadow, no!" Sonic shouted to him.

Shadow used every ounce of power left and commanded the lizard away. The super nova created by them faded, and the lizard was gone, the ARK stopping its fall. Shadow's Super form washed away as well.

"There, Maria. I did it, I kept my promise," he thought as he plummeted down to the planet.

The door to the central section of the ARK parted, and Sonic stepped in, no longer in Super form. He was met with a shower of applause, at least all of two other 'mutants' could do.

"So, where is Shadow?" Tails asked Sonic.

Sonic held two rings in his hand, the same two that Shadow had during the battle.

"He's the one who saved us all," Sonic said.

Eggman had been staring out the window. He saw the rings, "Those rings balanced Shadow's powers. With them, he couldn't have teleported the lizard away. His powers overloaded, and even if he remained Super, that overload would've paralyzed him anyway."

"So is that it?" Knuckles asked.

"It looks that way," Sonic told him. He went up to the doctor, "Well, Robotnik, what do you say we return to our time now? Just leave all this behind?"

The mad doctor continued staring out the window, "I hate you Sonic. You've stopped each of my plans, and are just leading this world further toward human de-generation."

"What needs to happen will happen!" Sonic told him.

"You don't get it. When we arrived here, all I wanted was control. Then I saw the potential of these other humans. I could save them all. Then there would never be de-generation, and I would be known forever!"

"You only care about yourself, you old moron! You just want total control!"

"I want animals to never adapt! I want humans to rule forever!"

"That isn't possible, Robotnik! Something _will_ happen at some point! You just wish I couldn't exist to foil your plans again and again!"

Robotnik turned to his old adversary, "That may be true, but if I can do this, I will be hailed for years to come! No one will dethrone Dr. Ivo Robotnik!"

Sonic kicked down the larger Eggman. The two fought directly on the floor of the Space Colony ARK, and all Tails and Knuckles could do was watch. The two fought without giving an inch. It wasn't until Eggman broke free did it slow down.

"I don't need to take this from the likes of you! I could have very well left that planet to destruction!" Eggman shouted to Sonic, "I built a second time machine! I could have left whenever I wanted! You wouldn't be there to stop me then, but I stayed!"

"I'm going to kill you, Eggman!" Sonic shouted as the mad doctor slipped out the doors. Sonic tore after him, but the doctor had already escaped on the teleportation device.

"We can't let him get away, not after everything that's happened," Sonic said as he went to the teleport.

"He could be anywhere by now," Tails said, "How do we find him this time?"

"There's another time machine on that base. He's sure to stay and defend it."

"Why would he want to defend it?" Knuckles asked.

"He might not want to use it, but we do, and he doesn't want us to escape before his empire takes over."

They took to the teleport and left for the planet.

The morning of April 30th, 2009 was like every other. The headlines of each newspaper told of an unexpected pattern of yellow northern lights the night before. Sonic stood atop a hill overlooking the flooded city of San Francisco, behind him the bullet ridden shack that Tails had used for a workshop that week. It now was worse off than it had been before. The day was beautiful, but Sonic had no time to gaze. Eggman was still out there, and the only way that they would be getting back to their home time would be to kill the mad doctor. He was already difficult enough to keep up with, let alone long enough to sink a dagger or something into his bubbling mass. Sonic grabbed a rock and threw it off the ledge as hard as he could venting anger.

"That's not going to help," Tails said from behind Sonic.

"Man, this has been quite the week," Sonic told him.

"Have you seen what I've been put through? This has been a HELL of a week,"

"And the cow responsible is still out there. We're the only ones who can stop him, and finding him has been a task."

"There's no use standing around complaining about it. All we can do at this point is go to his base. You said it yourself, that time machine is our ticket back home, and Eggman wants us to be a part of his 'empire'."

"We have to be a part of it? I'll pass on that one."

"Then let's find Knuckles and finish this once and for all."

The three entered the Tornado VI and flew off to the jungle that evolved into a desert and then to the pyramid that held Eggman's base. The formidability of the structure apparent as ever now, all bets were off and Eggman was sure to have a few tricks of his own. Tails landed the plane right outside and everyone exited.

"You guys ready for this?" Sonic asked them.

"Of course, Sonic, I'm always ready!" Tails quickly responded.

"Yeah, I'm ready too," Knuckles said.

"There's no telling what's behind this doorway. You've both been so persistent even though we're years from home and have been tested to the max for an entire week. And through everything, good and bad, we've stuck through. I've got to honestly say… I love you guys."

"We love you to Sonic," Tails spoke for himself.

"Sonic, we need to focus, this is the most important moment of all," Knuckles yelled.

"Knuckles, way to break the moment!"

"Tails, let it rest. Let's do this."

Sonic tried to force the door open, but Knuckles had to step in and break it down. They took to the unlit corridor to the entry of the base. When they stepped into a larger open area, it was pitch black.

"Where is he?" Sonic whispered to himself.

That very instant the room flooded with light as the metal components of the base became illuminated. They were surrounded by hundreds of robots, and the mad doctor Robotnik sat high above in a luxury box with a megaphone.

"Welcome Sonic the Hedgehog and lackeys to the Final Fortress!" the sinister doctor announced from the box, "Today, our competitors Sonic the Naïve Imprudent Moron, Tails the Inferior Pushover, and Knuckles the Thick-Headed Rat! Today these three failures will face off against the Eggman Army, the most glorious assortment of robots this side of California!"

"What the hell is he doing up there?" Sonic shouted.

"What the hell are we going to do?" Tails shouted.

"What the hell did he call me?" Knuckles shouted.

"It will be a lot easier to submit now, because I'm done playing around! The Eggman Empire begins today, beginning with your demise! Attention all troops, destroy Sonic the Hedgehog and the inferiors."

A thousand pairs of red eyes engaged the trio at the center of the room. The missiles locked on target and waited for the order. The three stood in a back to back triangle… okay not really. Knuckles was staring right at Eggman. He'd gone a long way since being tricked by the mad doctor the first time. He was the guardian of the Master Emerald, sure, but if he could take out the only villain of the 3270's, he'd have a pretty laid-back time come the return to MOBI time. He hated Robotnik. Sure he had his faults, but Knuckles was no_ rat._ He remembered his promise that he would kill Eggman eventually. The treasure hunting skills wouldn't help him here, brute strength was the way to go.

Tails wasn't really standing, rather shaking from head to toe and cowering behind the other two. He became one of the smartest Mobians of the 3270's before being thrown into this adventure, and no matter how advanced the biology, Tails was still only 8 years old. Naturally, he cannot control his fears if a lot happens at once, and clearly now was one of the times that he's uncontrollably scared. From the time his life fell apart at only age 2 to nearly being raped by a cow only days before is a lot for anyone. Tails couldn't imagine life without Sonic at this point, becoming more than a mentor and savior. The two bonded like brothers in the 6 years leading up to the time machine. Cowering now, Tails realized what Robotnik was always on about. He was weak, he _did _do lackey work, but Sonic cared for him, he knew it! He was going to stand (sort of) his ground against the mad doctor alongside Sonic, whether it would be the last time or not.

Sonic was really the only one standing tall among the three. He stood alongside his only friends at the center of his worst enemy's domain. Sonic thought back to how his home was invaded, how the man in the luxury box had taken it all away from him. He had foiled so many of his plans in the past and had become the doctor's demise before. Why was that so difficult this time around? Sonic could barely get on his feet before Robotnik had claimed half the resources. Why did it work before? Sonic had beaten Eggman so many times before, what was so different about now? He didn't care about the whys. He only wanted to destroy the fat fuck. But that couldn't be possible. The entirety of Eggman's robots were staring them all down. Sonic looked around and saw jutting metal on the walls. There was a pathway to Eggman. If he could get up to him, it would be as simple a to finish the job. There was no way he was leaving Tails and Knuckles, though. The three had become family on this journey. Sonic grabbed his chest, the collapsed lung reasserting itself. That's one of the reasons.

"Well, Sonic! Looks like you've ran your last marathon!" the mad doctor hollered from above.

There was no question. Sonic was going to do it even if it killed him.

"Fire!" Robotnik commanded his army. Bullets rained down to the center of the room, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were halfway up the wall already. The robots quickly recalculated their targets and fired at the trio again. The bullets decimated a supporting beam on the wall, bringing the entire thing down onto a line of robots. The others continued to fire at the trio as they jumped across the room. More and more robots were crushed underneath falling debris they created. Soon enough, the army was reduced to a few hundred, and the trio fell to the battleground.

"Okay, we've got an advantage now!" Sonic shouted to them, "Knuckles, go for the larger ones. Tails, take them out from cover. That gun will come in handy."

"What about Eggman?" Tails asked.

"That will come in due time. For now, we take out his reserves. I'll keep up the distracting." Sonic ran off again into the rain of fire and hopped around the room.

"Oh this is so delightful," the mad doctor bellowed from the luxury box. He gazed at his creations and Sonic running about like a loose cow! "Who's the cow now, Sonic?" the doctor shouted to his enemy.

The numbers of the robots became more and more apparent. They had split into individual groups and began concentrating heavy fire on the trio by themselves. Knuckles had taken out the larger of the robots, but become overwhelmed by the smaller ones. Sonic noticed that Knuckles was completely surrounded and came in for the save. The two together at the center of began to defeat robots left and right. It took hand-to-hand combat before the circle that enclosed the two was reduced to scrap.

Tails was next to become overwhelmed. The gun was too large, and took an incredible amount of time to reload. Tails could barely pick off 3 robots before a problem presented itself. Sonic swooped in and took out line upon line of robots as Tails managed to shoot down the others.

"How is this possible!?" Eggman yelled once he realized his forces were failing.

The three came together confident as ever as the rest of the robots fell. The room had been decimated from the bullets, and the floor was covered in scrap from the demolished army.

"Come on Eggman! Get down here and fight your own battle for once!" Sonic yelled to the frantic doctor.

"Sorry, Sonic. I simply don't have time to waste on you anymore." The doctor sent in two more robots, only this time they were gigantic. The two robots tore through the walls of the room, demolishing it further and revealing the inner workings of the base. The assembly line was mass producing the shells, and holding cells housed thousands of small creatures.

"You sick bastard! You're still using animals for your robots?" Sonic yelled.

"Shut up and die!" the impatient doctor hollered from above. The robots forced their way to the three, closing them in. Then the machine guns fired again. Sonic got all three of them out the top of the metallic tube and behind the large robots.

"You guys need to hold these two off! The doctor is sure to have more of these, and if those get here we're screwed." Sonic told the two.

"You're not just going to leave us here?" Knuckles shouted to him.

"I'm going after the doctor. He's sure to have control of these robots."

"You've seen me fighting! There's no way we'll last without your help!" Tails shouted next.

"I'll be as quick as possible. We can't beat them this way."

Sonic turned to head toward the doctor.

"Sonic…" Tails was cut off by gun fire. The robots had turned at last and had fired. Tails had been hit and taken down. Sonic ran back, but had no idea what to do.

"Go now!" Knuckles shouted, "I'll take it from here."

Sonic hesitated, but agreed, "I'm going to fucking kill Robotnik."

Sonic rushed toward the giant robots and rebounded off, heading straight to the luxury box.

"What!?" the doctor managed to shout as Sonic crashed in. The force behind the kick drove the doctor and Sonic backward through a door behind the box. Now they were in a hallway in the doctor's base. The soundproof walls kept the gunfire noise at minimum.

"I bet you think you have won, Sonic," Eggman spoke once he regained his stature.

"You could say I'm pretty damn close," Sonic responded.

"Well, hold this moment for as long as you can, because this is the closest you will ever get to defeating the great Doctor Robotnik!"

"I don't get it. Why did you do all this? You've endangered so many innocent… species!"

"It might be because I've been ridiculed since birth! I've always been this large. When I was younger all the dickhead animals treated me with absolutely no respect! I was nothing more than a brainless COW! I wanted them to understand what it's like to be _tortured_, the way they made me feel! I killed and kidnapped for years, showing the world that Eggman meant business! I even turned some into my own personal army. I controlled them! I felt so powerful, and I AM! If you hadn't gotten in my way, I would have taken complete control of Mobius! I would have reinstated human domain! I would have won!"

Eggman paused and stared right into Sonic.

"Or perhaps… I just felt like it."

"You're insane, Eggman! You would destroy ALL life rather than reestablish an old one!"

"I've had enough of this bickering! Sonic the Hedgehog, submit to your ruler, or face the consequences."

Sonic braced himself, "Stick it up your ass!"

"I was hoping you would say that," the doctor braced himself too.

The two stood in another staring contest, only this time it would be the difference between life and death. Sonic made the first move, leaping toward the doctor with great force, once again sending the two backward. They rolled onto the ground, and Sonic had the doctor pinned down. The doctor blocked a barrage of fists and eventually forced Sonic off him. Sonic landed with light feet and took straight to the doctor again. The doctor was ready, and gave an on-back roundhouse kick, sending Sonic flying right past him. Sonic soared through another door and found himself in an assembly room, the conveyer belt moving him slowly toward processing. The doctor stepped into the room and was clotheslined from behind. Now the two were in close quarters again moving along the belt. The doctor kicked Sonic off him again, but Sonic rebounded off a wall, and flung himself into the now standing Eggman. This sent the two through another door into the most grotesque room of all. The assembly line carried finished robots, and a grabbing arm brought small animals to the shell. Sonic was stunned by the disgusting production line, and was distracted long enough for Eggman to punch Sonic from behind. Caught off guard, Sonic was dazed and the mad doctor grabbed him. Soon the two were alongside the production line. Eggman deactivated the belt and grabbing arm. He forced Sonic onto the unmoving belt and continued to beat the ravaged hedgehog.

"I told you, Sonic. I'm smarter, larger, and stronger than you! There was no way you could have defeated me! Now I'll robotize you and earn my grandest trophy of all! Any last words, Sonic?" Eggman yelled holding Sonic up to the unfinished robot.

"Yeah…" Sonic gasped out, "You've forgotten one thing about me…"

"What is that?"

Sonic forced a soft grin, "I actually have friends."

Eggman was stuck from behind with a metal pipe by Knuckles. Robotnik dropped Sonic and staggered forward onto his knees. Knuckles marched to the doctor, ready to fulfill his promise.

"Knuckles, look out!" Sonic shouted from the ground.

The mad doctor spun back with his own metal pipe and whacked Knuckes back into a wall, effectively knocking him out. Eggman looked to Knuckles laughing with victory. He wasn't paying attention to Sonic, who had gotten back to his feet. Eggman glanced over to see yet another foot driven into his face. This took the doctor aback, into another room of the base. Sonic followed to see they were in an incinerator room. Pieces of totaled metal were being rolled into the flames on conveyer belts left and right. The room was like an oven, but the doctor's temper was even hotter. He charged at Sonic, throwing the two into the burning wall of the incinerator room. Eggman was now on top of Sonic, delivering his own barrage of fists. Eggman was too large for Sonic to move, and once Eggman was off, Sonic was being drug off to the robotization room by a limping doctor. Sonic managed to break loose of the doctor's sweaty grip. He used all the energy he had left to send the two onto one of the conveyer belts. They continued to throw fists while being moved to the flames of the incinerator. Robotnik finally was able to lift the weathered Sonic. He forcefully positioned Sonic toward the edge of the belt. They were nearing the fire.

"You're finished Sonic!" the doctor roared, "The Eggman Empire will live on!"

Sonic hardly managed to lift his head, another grin barely visible on his face.

"Don't speak too soon…" Sonic breathed. Soon a green glow enveloped itself around Sonic. The bewildered Eggman could only stare as Sonic disappeared right out of his hands. He spun back to see Sonic in the doorway, a Chaos Emerald in his hand. He had used Chaos Control to escape the grip of the mad doctor. It was now that the belt reached the incinerator.

The doctor was pushed off the belt as it ended. Down he fell into the flames of ten years. There was only one concluding message from the doctor:

"I hate that hedgehog!" Robotnik yelled as the fire engulfed him.

Sonic had managed to keep the pose for as long as he could. After the doctor fell he collapsed. He managed to step out of the incinerator and make his way over to Knuckles.

"Are you okay?" Sonic asked.

Knuckles was only coming to his senses at this point, but immediately stood when he heard this, "Of course I'm fine!"

"Where is Tails…?" Sonic asked from the floor.

"There was a way up from the other room up to here. I brought Tails up and away from the two robots."

Sonic drug himself to where Tails was at.

"Tails… please tell me you're okay."

Tails looked to Sonic, "Where is the bullet at? I can't stand this pain."

Sonic succeeded to actually fully stand up again at this point and began to examine Tails, "I don't see anything,"

"Look on the other side," Tails rolled over, and Sonic instantly saw the bullet. It was lodged in his right ass-cheek.

"That's awkward," Sonic said.

The three hobbled through the doctor's base. All the robots and other electronics had stopped operating, dying alongside their creator. They eventually found the room that held their ticket home.

"So this it… our ride back to 3274," Tails said.

"We actually can now, there's no more corrupt branch of government, giant monsters, or Eggman anymore. We saved our future," Sonic stated.

"What do we do when we get back? All I can remember ever doing in our time was chasing Robotnik."

"It means you finally can lead normal lives," Knuckles told them, "I've got a Master Emerald to guard."

"It's too bad no one will ever know about our adventure. No one will believe we travelled through time, and nearly everyone we've come into contact with we've ended up killing." Tails said

"That makes even better," Sonic reassured, "It will be _our_ story. One only that we know, that won't be enhanced by medias. One we can look back on in fond memory,"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Tails, do you even know how to work this?" Knuckles tried to move things along.

"Of course, let me take a look,"

It wasn't long before the machine began to vibrate, and a portal opened within the parameters of the mechanism.

"Okay, it's set for 3274 MOBI…" Tails said.

The three stood in silence, staring at their ride home.

"Are you going to miss this place?" Sonic asked.

"What? Well… I guess, maybe a little," Tails responded.

"I've had enough," Knuckles stepped up to the portal, "Audios, amigos!" he was sent through the time warp forward to 3274.

"I guess this is it," Sonic said, "Go ahead, Tails." Tails stepped up to the portal. Sonic stopped him, "We'll get that bullet checked out when we get back."

Tails smiled straightaway, "I knew we'd make it," he said as he stepped into the portal.

Sonic took one last look; back to the base, back to the GUN, back to Eggman, back to all the humans, back to the cities, back to the world he barely knew.

"Fuck this planet," Sonic said as he stepped into the portal, and on his way back to Mobius, the world he had always known.


End file.
